It was 110 days back when the first corona virus case was detected in India, and yesterday the total number of cases crossed the figure of 100,000 (one lakh). Now with 3100 deaths from this virus, and there are almost 39,000 patients who have recovered, the over all situation is not that alarming if you consider the other countries who have crossed the figure of more than 100,000 cases .The state of Maharashtra accounts for little over 35,000 cases, and from this Mumbai city is having 21,300 cases. The death toll in Maharashtra stands at 1249 and contribution of Mumbai city in this is 757.
During last few days the number of infected cases have gone up, because when Migrant workers after reaching their home state were tested than many of them were found to be infected. Now the situation has come to such a stage the some states have banned the entry of Migrant workers coming back home from other states. Karnataka and Telangana have done this. While Karnataka has banned entry of migrants from Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamilnadu, Telangana has banned the entry from Maharashtra, Gujarat and Andhra. Even Haryana and Rajasthan are sending back buses coming from UP.I fail to understand why this is happening. Earlier these same states were after centre govt to allow the migrants from the other states return to their home, and now the same states are refusing the migrants entry. In my opinion all the stake holder states in the migrant movement made a grave mistake, and now they are repenting when there have been spike in number of corona infected cases in their respective states. This was basically due to vote bank politics practised by few political parties, and these parties put pressure on the central govt for allowing the migrant movement. In my opinion. the migrants who were stuck up on their way to home, when first Lock down was allowed, only these migrants should have been allowed to travel to their home state. After wards it should have been duty of host state to take care of the migrant workers.
Now what is happening in Mumbai city is really pathetic. BMC have allotted the helpline number 1916 for helping infected patients in booking the hospital beds and services of ambulances etc. The service has been proven to be the most ineffective. In one instance on the morning of 11th May when a person got the report that he is corona +ve, his family thought once they inform 1916, then the BMC will take charge, but ground reality was very different. While a bed was located in Nair Hospital after few hours, but they could not arrange for the ambulance till 9pm, and by the time ambulance was found the patient breathed his last. The family later commented when they called 1916, they were redirected to others, and with great difficulty they could arrange for bed in hospital but no ambulance. In another case a person was already in private hospital, when his report came +ve, he was asked to shift to hospital which is having covid 19 treatment facility. Despite multiple calls to 1916 a bed was arranged after 24 hours, but then the ambulance could not be arranged by 1916, and finally the family of the person had to shell out Rs 13,000 for a ride of 15 Km by private ambulance. The family member said the made more than dozen calls to helpline 1916, disaster management cell and even municipal ward office, but it was of no avail.
Can you imagine the plight of family members of the infected person, first they are in shock and then on top of that they do not get timely help from the authorities. In the end it only proves there is lack of coordination between various govt agencies dealing in this pandemic. There is one more thing the media has put so much fear in everyone’s mind regarding corona virus, that ordinary human being hesitate to provide help to the family in distress. It has come to notice that most of the ambulance operators have not been provided with Personal Protection Equipment (PPE), so without any fear they can transport the infected patients.
On the flip flops of Maharashtra govt and BMC there is no end to it. Yesterday was the first day of Lockdown 4, and Mumbaikars who had read the guidelines issued by Central govt came out in large numbers with their vehicles, they were not knowing about the separate instructions issued by state Govt/BMC, which said in Mumbai, Lockdown3 instructions will continue till further notice. The second flip flop of yesterday was that as per earlier order when in some building some one was found corona positive, then that complete building/society was sealed. Now yesterday BMC have come out with the protocol that no need to seal building or society when one positive case is found. With this change number of containment zones in Mumbai are reduced to 674 from 1767. Now they are putting the onus on housing societies to follow the regulation of containment. The ruling says when in a housing society positive case is found, the society is expected to implement containment measures like restricting entry of maids, vendors or service providers to the sealed area and tying up with local vendors and medical stores to deliver essential to those in lock down or home quarantined asymptomatic patients.
In reality, the fact of the matter is that with almost 8 weeks in lockdown, the situation is far from the desired one, and people are getting fed up while sitting at home. One chain of thought is with so much restrictions the infected cases are increasing manifold, so why there should be locked down when it is not serving its purpose. Where as second chain of thought is if there would not have been locked down , there would have been more number of infected cases than what they are now. In the end govt has to find out the balance between number of cases and economics of the market.
So friends, what is your opinion in this matter.
Please write your views/feed back/comments.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
19th May 2020.
R. N. Mungale.
It is difficult to control the infectious.