Jubilee Post News & Views
- Populated countries like India lockdown is the solution not testing
Yogesh Bandhu
Be it political think tanks, media or the intellectuals all have one debate in mind which is fighting coronavirus has the only solution in testing, and nothing else. But those stressing upon testing are not aware of the global situations or are ignoring it deliberately. The idea to test one and all in the country is not only incorrect but misleading too. This can be understood with another global disease AIDS.
AIDS was known to humans in 1981 and till now 30 crore people have lost their lives to it. At present in India over 21.40 lakh people are living with HIV/AIDS but the UN agencies state it to be above 30 lakh. AIDS is an infectious disease and spread in three ways – unprotected sex, blood transfusion and from pregnant mother to the newborn.
A blood sample can tell HIV infection status of a person. Such a infection has fever, weight loss, gastroenteritis problem and muscle pain as primary symptoms. Whether all those having gastroenteritis problem, weight loss, having fever are tested for HIV infection. The answer is no.
In the same manner those with COVID-19 have fever and dry cough as primary symptoms. If unprotected sex or blood transfusion are not enough for conducting HIV test hence only dry cough or respiratory illness is not sufficient for coronavirus test.
But a section of international media is stressing that to fight coronavirus it is necessary to test maximum people. This is similar to the suggestion that all having sexual relationships or all pregnant women be tested for HIV.
It may be mentioned that due to lack of resources and expansion of the diseases it was not possible to test all the people for coronavirus and is not possible even today for any country. In such a situation it is a priority that healthy and sick people be separated and kept separated. And for this countries are adapting lockdown. The second possibility is to test all suspected cases and this is also being adapted by countries as per their capacity.
India reported its first case on January 30 in Kerala and since then it has been rising. On two dates March 29 and April 6 there was a fall recorded in the rise of cases. It may be mentioned that till March 29 there were no cases from the Tabligi Jamat. But after March 31 majority cases were from the Tabligi Jamat or their contacts. This also indicates the government efforts to control cases is in the right direction.
It can now be said that the government effort to first get lockdown and then test maximum possible among the suspected cases was correct in the global scenario and one of the best strategy. But many in the country are stressing upon mandatory testing of all the citizens but it will be difficult to imagin the kind of chaos it will create. Another important thing is whether testing can ensure the person will not get the infection – obviously not.
Getting infected will depend upon whether that person gets in touch in another infected person or not and for containing infection it is necessary that both remain separate for 16 days which is lockdown. Due to lack of medical facilities it is not possible to do in Europe or America.
Those pushing test for everyone model are not aware that the Singapore model has covered only 65000 people which is less than even half of the tests (167235) done in India till April 01. Second point is Singopore has a population of 56 lakh and even then it could not get all its residents tested.
Till April 01 there were 774 patients of which 559 had foreign contacts and it was easy to identify them and keep in quarantine. The government there took a decision to strictly identify and keep them separate from the society. And in India the manner in which the cases are to be found out is different situation from any other country, be It Singapore or any other country.
Till Thursday 285 districts of 31 states and UTs were under the impact of coronavirus. Among them are five states and UTs who had all 30 districts reporting coronavirus cases. There are 445 districts where coronavirus cases have not been reported.
If we have to win over the coronavirus we need to contain it till where it is. Of the total the 80% cases are from 62 districts and for prevention it is necessary that hotspots be followed strictly and kept under monitoring until the cases go zero here.
Hotspots are places in any district where six or more cases were reported at once and monitoring of such districts that have reported one or two cases is also important to contain the virus. In districts where the virus has not reached needs to secure the entry points so that the infection does not reach there in any condition. We need to follow China model too which kept the affected area separate.
China could bring Wuhan back to normal in three months and this was possible only as it was cut off from the rest of the China and the model is being adopted by Japan and other rich and poor countries. It is because even if a country is rich the spread can not be stopped on the basis of resources. The good thing in fight against the coronavirus is that the entire country stands united.
(Disclaimer: The views expressed are personal of the writer. Jubilee Post is not responsible for any information, its accuracy, practicality or truth)
