A Debe pun­dit and his wife, who re­main hos­pi­talised af­ter test­ing pos­i­tive for COVID-19, took all pre­cau­tions to en­sure that they did not spread the dis­ease, a close rel­a­tive says.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, the rel­a­tive said from the mo­ment the pun­dit and his wife re­turned from abroad on Sun­day night they went in­to self-quar­an­tine.

"No­body saw them, no­body vis­it­ed them and they fol­lowed all pro­to­cols as di­rect­ed. They were in com­plete iso­la­tion," the rel­a­tive said.

She added that neigh­bours, friends and fam­i­ly had no rea­son to be afraid of con­tract­ing the dis­ease be­cause the cou­ple ad­hered to all Min­istry of Health pro­to­cols.

She ex­plained that even when they (fam­i­ly) went to drop bread for the cou­ple, both of them in­sist­ed it be left out­side so that there would be no con­tact with them. She said when the pun­dit be­gan de­vel­op­ing symp­toms, he called for as­sis­tance and both them were rushed by am­bu­lance to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal be­fore be­ing tak­en to the Cou­va Health Fa­cil­i­ty.

The rel­a­tive said on Wednes­day, the pun­dit's wife be­came dis­tressed over re­ports that Hin­dus were con­tin­u­ing con­gre­ga­tion­al wor­ship al­though the pun­dit was hos­pi­talised.

The Guardian had re­port­ed that a group of Hin­du devo­tees had con­tin­ued do­ing hour-long wor­ship at Ra­mai Trace but this group of Hin­dus was in no way af­fil­i­at­ed with the pun­dit who test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19. His tem­ple is not lo­cat­ed at Ra­mai Trace.

"We closed the tem­ple over a month now and there is no wor­ship. The peo­ple who are do­ing wor­ship are in no way af­fil­i­at­ed with us," the rel­a­tive added.

As far as the cou­ple’s con­di­tion was con­cerned, the rel­a­tive said nei­ther of them cur­rent­ly had any res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­tress.

"He has a lit­tle fever and his con­di­tion re­mains the same. His wife was a lit­tle sick­er to­day (Wednes­day), fever and a lit­tle di­ar­rhoea," she added.

She said both they were com­fort­able and were pleased with the treat­ment they were get­ting in the hos­pi­tal.

"The nurs­es are re­al­ly friend­ly and for now they are do­ing well," she added.

The pun­dit, who suf­fers from di­a­betes, is well re­spect­ed in the com­mu­ni­ty.

In its Thurs­day morn­ing up­date, the Min­istry of Health said 90 peo­ple had test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19, five peo­ple have died and one per­son has since been dis­charged, while some 621 sam­ples were sub­mit­ted to CARPHA for test­ing.