Covid-19: Grimmer predictions for India
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: May 07, 2021 -

FOR a landlocked state like Manipur, it should have been comparatively convenient to keep the scale of Covid-19 pandemic under control had the authorities promptly regulated entry of outsiders or natives returning home from high risk zones and monitored their health status before allowing them to mix up with the general population from the initial stages of outbreak of the second wave in the country.

Unlike the first wave when the government had to evacuate thousands of natives, who were anxious to abandon their place of work and educational institutions when the nationwide lockdown left them with no other choice but to be with their families, there were no mad rush at the start of the more virulent second wave.

Considering the rapid spread of the infectious disease in the state, it could be safely stated that by the time the government imposed restrictions on incoming air passengers and land route travellers the preventive measures adopted were already late and ineffective.

In fact, testing of the incoming passengers for Covid-19 resumed days after some major states, where Manipuris frequent for different reasons, started registering high rate of infections thereby indicating that the second wave of the pandemic was already on.

No doubt, public complacency in following the safety protocols subsequent to dramatic fall in the number of daily cases in between later January till February was one of the factors for the second wave of the contagion to fan out across the state.

Nevertheless, debating at this critical juncture on whether the government or the public should be held accountable for the present mess wouldn't help tackle the virus.

Rather, both the policy makers and the masses should accord serious importance to Covid forecasters warning that India will see double the number of deaths in the coming weeks in addition to the imminent third wave.

Contrary to the hope of many that the pandemic situation would end soon, a team at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore (Bengaluru) citing a mathematical model to predict about 404,000 deaths in India by June 11 if the current trends continue implies that emphasis should be given towards saving as many lives as possible, for scaling down the number of infections seems to be quite impossible at the moment.

Moreover, a model from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington forecasting 1,018,879 deaths by the end of July points to every finding projecting only the worst-case scenarios in the country.

As such the experts' recommendation that Union and state governments urgently need to step up public health measures like testing and social distancing should be implemented and enforced most vigorously to avoid India replacing the US as the world's worst affected country in terms of Covid-19 deaths.

In view of the latest research models forecasting that the country's biggest health crisis has the potential to worsen in the coming weeks coupled with officials of the health ministry predicting even greater disaster, the government of Manipur too needs to ramp up the healthcare infrastructures and ensure adequate manpower to prevent total collapse of the healthcare system.

On its part, the police authorities should instruct personnel working at the ground level to diligently enforce the prohibitory order in every residential pocket within the containment zone instead of investing all their energy and time in waiting for pulling up motorists sans face mask on the main roads.