Devastating Wednesday: Alarming Surge In Fresh Cases And Deaths
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2021-05-06 04:51:29
About the Author
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
View all posts by this Author
In an alarming surge that belied hopes of fresh Covid cases reaching a plateau in some states, India reported 412784 new cases on Wednesday. The worst part was this was even when lower tests were conducted on the day. 16.6 lakh tests were conducted on Monday and India reported 382000 cases on Tuesday. But on Tuesday only 15.4 lakh tests were conducted yet infections jumped by over 30000. On Wednesday, positivity rate (PR) was nearly 27 percent, which has now passed even the alarming stage as this has been going on for more than 15 days. In some places, the PR is as high as 55%. Deaths are also increasing alarmingly. On Wednesday, 3980 people died due to Covid which was 5% higher than the previous day. After showing signs of control, Maharashtra once again reported alarming numbers on Wednesday, Karnataka continues to lead in PR and Delhi is totally in the grip of the second wave. Healthcare and dead body disposal infrastructure is under severe strain and if fresh cases and deaths continue to rise at this rate, there are chances that there will be anarchy and then cases will rise exponentially.
The government needs to immediately enforce a lockdown, if not nationally then at least in the identified 150 districts that are reporting a PR of more than 15% for the last 10 days. Districts with high death rates must also be identified and similar lockdown must be imposed there. It is extremely surprising that a national lockdown that continued for almost three months was imposed when there were less than 1 lakh cases per day in the first wave but no decision is being taken now when daily cases have reached 4 lakh. Jaan bhi jahaan bhi is a noble thought but what will the jahaan be without jaan? Travel restrictions must also be placed (West Bengal, along with several other states have already made it mandatory for travelers to carry a current RT-PCR report before entering the state). The vaccination drive needs to be brought back on the rails. Although experts have used mathematical models to predict that the second wave will peak soon and the cases are likely to drop as fast as they rose, if the current PR and death rate continues for even 10 days, it will be tragic. We have to remember that the government has already said that no expert had predicted the severity with which the second wave would hit. Then the prediction that the second wave will peak soon cannot be relied upon in full. Further, experts have already said that a third wave is inevitable given the floating infections in the second wave.
