Negligence galore as Covid cases rise in state
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: January 13, 2022 -

WITH India witnessing an exponential rise in the number of Covid-19 cases, which is believed to be driven by the Omicron variant, there is strong possibility that the pandemic situation in the state too would turn for the worse in case the preventive measures announced by the government could not be fully enforced without any further delay.

The only sign of relief in-spite of the spiralling cases arising out of the third wave is that the hospitalisation rate is relatively low when compared to the first two waves when the hospitalisation rate was close to 20 per cent.

During the first wave of the pandemic, the country recorded highest number of infection at 96,424 cases on September 2020 whereas the second wave peaked with 4-14 lakh cases on May 6, 2021.

With 1.94 lakh cases detected as on Tuesday and almost all the states, including the relatively safer northeast region and union territories registering record number of infections since the past few days after some months of respite from the virulent second wave one can easily predict that the health crisis would aggravate in the coming days or weeks.

As per official reports, India has been reporting rise of over 6.3 times Covid-19 cases in the last few days in addition to recording sharp increase in case positivity rate from 0.79 per cent in late December to 5.03 per cent in the first few weeks of new year.

Even if preliminary findings claim that Omicron infections show milder symptoms large numbers of medical personnel testing Covid positive in different states suggest that the healthcare system might collapse anytime.

Regardless of the fact that the state has also been witnessing increasing number of cases and the contagion continuing to spread to almost all the districts, the worrying aspect is that majority of the general population continues to undermine the health experts' advice of strictly adhering to Covid-19 appropriate behaviour while the police personnel deployed in the congested Imphal market places seemed to be engrossed in activities not associated with enforcement of the safety protocols.

As had been often commented in this column, preventing transmission and casualties of/from the viral disease will rest on how diligently the law enforcement agencies discharge their duties at the ground level and efficiency of the healthcare personnel in ensuring speedier recovery of the infected patients.

With health experts across the world unable to predict when the pandemic might end averting disastrous consequences will naturally depend on relentless efforts of the frontline workers and complying with the prescribed guidelines by the public.

However, like in the past there seems to be negligence on the part of police personnel, commoners and traders especially in the commercial areas, where people in thousands converge on a daily basis for varied activities and reasons.

On its part, the government authorities need no reminding that simply formulating safety guidelines without strictly implementing the same wouldn't yield anything positive.

For instance, simply curtailing and regulating trading hours while overlooking the importance of mandatory wearing of face masks and other preventive measures is akin to facilitating convergence of vectors and spread of the disease.