customers due to lockdown-associated movement restrictions. The serious challenges
people faced with respect to their livelihoods also exposed that many individuals do
not simply rely on assistance given by the international community; instead, they count
on access to local markets and on job opportunities to ensure adequate income and
food for their families. In the more recent round of interviews, this trend continued as
many respondents said that economic harm was the most serious form of harm they
had suffered in connection with Covid-19. The global pandemic is having a serious
impact on remittances and other forms of support from family members located
outside Cox’s Bazar as well.
(3) Impact of Covid-19 and lockdown on family relationships and communication
In the latest round of interviews, almost every respondent struggled to maintain family
relationships and communication with loved ones during lockdown. Grandparents
missed the birth of grandchildren, and spouses couldn’t give their departed spouse a
proper funeral. While some of these challenges mirrored those that have been
experienced by the global community since the onset of Covid-19, Rohingya camp
residents experienced these restrictions in a different way because, for them, living in
camps away from their home country was already a constrained and restricted way of
life. Camp residents explained that they not only had difficulty reaching family
members in other camps in Cox’s Bazar, but also in keeping in touch with family
members who had gone to clinics, been put into isolation, or sent to Bhasan Char.
(4) Perceptions of medical clinics and hospitals
Since the onset of Covid-19 in Cox’s Bazar, testing, isolation and treatment for Covidlike symptoms in the health clinics and hospitals have not been appealing options for
camp residents. As internet access continued to be restricted and verifiable news in
short supply, rumours about treatment in the official health clinics spread through the
camps by word of mouth, leaving many to keep their distance. In the early days of
lockdown, rumours circulated that community members who were found to have Covid19 at the clinics would be ‘disappeared’ or sent away without their families being able to
find or contact them. The lack of trust between community members and the medical
actors running the clinics continues to pose an obstacle for attempts to stop the spread
of the virus and to treat those who contract it; this has opened considerable space for
the operations of unlicensed health practitioners, sometimes referred to by community
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