oppn parties Testing, Or Verifiable Negative Report Must At Entry Points Of All States To Prevent Spread

News Snippets

  • SP drops two candidates owing allegiance to Azam Khan from Rampur and Moradabad
  • In Assam, a controversy erupted after a picture of UPPL leader Benjamin Basumatary, lying on a stack of Rs 500 notes circulated on social media. UPPL is an ally of the BJP
  • AAP's Jalandhar-West MP Sushil Kumar Rinku joins the BJP. He was the only AAP Lok Sabha MP
  • Supreme Court dismisses Centre's plea to review its 2023 verdict in the PMLA case
  • Close save for passengers as they remain unhurt after the wings of two planes graze at Kolkata airport. Pilots derostered and inquiry ordered by DGCA
  • Bengal BJP leader Dilip Ghosh gets notice from the EC as well as the BJP for making ugly remarks about Mamata Banerjee's parentage
  • Sadanand Vasanth Date, who faught terrorists in the 26/11 attack and was awarded the Preisent's Police medal, has been appointed the head of the NIA
  • Centre will borrow Rs 7.5L cr in the first six months of FY25, nearly 50% of the target for the full year
  • 25 stocks, including SBI, will see same day trade settlements from today in the world's fastest settlement mode in both BSE and NSE
  • Stocks recover smartly on Wednesday: Sensex rises 526 points to 72996 and Nifty 118 points to 22123
  • Tennis: Rohan Bopanna-Matthew Ebden reached the semifinals of the Miami Open
  • IPL: records tumble as SRH beat MI in a high-scoring match. SRH score 277/3 with 18 sixes and Mumbai score 246 with 20 sixes to fall short by 31 runs. Atotal of 38 sixes, highest in an IPL match were hit and both teams combined to score 523 runs, the highest aggregate in an IPL match
  • Amul will launch fresh milk in the US
  • IPL: RCB beat Punjab by 4 wickets as Kohli and Karthik shine with the bat
  • India strongly objected to German foreign office remarks over the arrest of delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, called it "biased assumptions"
Delhi Lt Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena says government cannot be run from jail, hints at President's Rule in the capital ////// In a dangerous incident, the wings of two planes grazed while taxiing on the runway at Kolkata airport, all passengers were safe but DGCA ordered an inquiry and the pilots were derostered
oppn parties
Testing, Or Verifiable Negative Report Must At Entry Points Of All States To Prevent Spread

By Linus Garg
First publised on 2022-01-04 16:34:41

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Linus tackles things head-on. He takes sides in his analysis and it fits excellently with our editorial policy. No 'maybe's' and 'allegedly' for him, only things in black and white.

The third wave of Covid infections is raging across India. For the last few days, the country is reporting new cases at a galloping rate. The weekly average is moving up at an alarming rate. The positivity rate is going up fast. Although the surge is being driven by Maharashtra, Delhi, Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, since there is no check on movement of people across India and testing at entry points is not being done seriously (a double vaccinated certificate is enough for entry from one state to another, although a large number of people who have taken both the doses are getting infected this time), it is just a matter of time before a surge is reported from other states too.

India reported 37327 new cases on Tuesday. Mumbai reported 10860 cases while the number in Delhi was 5481. Reports from many states were still awaited. The positivity rate in Delhi was 8.37 percent. This high positivity rate indicates that transmission is very high and a higher number of people will test positive if more tests are conducted. It also indicates that the multiplicity of infections will rise exponentially in the next few weeks. The same is the case in Maharashtra and Bengal where the positivity rate is rising fast. At his rate, in the next few weeks, India's medical infrastructure will be totally overwhelmed.

So what should be done? It is clear that governments, both at the Centre and in the states, are not in favour of imposing a crippling total lockdown. Local restrictions are being imposed and micro containment zones are being identified and sealed for preventing the spread. Administrations are getting strict with people who are not following Covid protocols like wearing the mask in public. But will this be enough?

Even if restricting the movement of people is not advisable, entry from one state to another must strictly be on the basis of production of Covid negative report for tests done 72 hours before arrival. With reports of many people carrying 'fake' or doctored reports, there must be a mechanism to test the veracity of the report online. Also, testing must be ramped up within the states and contact tracing must be taken up seriously. The local restrictions and micro containment zones will work only if untested outsiders, or even residents returning to their homes, are strictly tested in all states and at all entry points. Otherwise, the third wave will engulf the country in no time and the consequences will be disastrous. 

Pic courtesy: mid-day.com