Coronavirus positive cases have started increasing pan-India for the past few days as the country reported 46,759 new positive cases and 509 deaths due to the deadly virus in the last 24 hours.
In Jammu & Kashmir, the Covid infection trend has been observed maintaining its upper hand against the number of cases recovered if one draws the inference from the daily official bulletin. 166 new positive cases (137 from Kashmir and 29 from Jammu division) have been reported today while 103 recovered. One patient also died and so was one on Friday.
Concerned over reports that the majority of people are not following Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), the health department officials are conducting Covid tests of all those who are caught not wearing masks in Srinagar. The administration in Ramban district has been collecting a good amount of fines on a daily basis from those caught violating the SoPs. But, no such drive for enforcing SoPs is visible in district Jammu or in other districts.
What is alarming is that people here are not taking the SoPs seriously at public places, markets, shopping malls, public offices etc and the local administration has also been relenting on enforcing these SoPs.
Interestingly, our Minister in Prime Minister Office Dr Jitendra Singh, who is a medico and represents J&K in the council of ministers, has been openly mocking at the SoPs as he is often seen without wearing mask in many public functions and gatherings and those photographs of the minister are boastfully being released to the media for the public to see and emulate. How the administration can enforce or penalize the common citizen for not wearing a mask or not maintaining physical distance when peoples’ representatives holding public office as high as that of PMO gives two hoots to such mandatory SoPs. Similar is the case with other VIPs in J&K.
Complaints of non-availability of vaccine at some centres of Jammu Division has also been reported on formal and social media while the union government claimed to have provided over 60.25 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses to states and union territories as on August 28.
The country has crossed a commendable milestone by vaccinating 50 per cent of its ‘declared eligible’ population with at least one dose of the vaccine which quite a significant achievement, given the size of India’s population, as well as the geographic, logistical and financial challenges involved.
However, this does not mean that India’s vaccination strategy has been on the mark, nor does it imply that the country can afford to ease its vigilance as far as Covid is concerned.
The rise of the Delta variant and reports of a ‘Delta-plus’ variant, both of which have been known to infect children in a significant way, calls for a rethink of our existing vaccination strategy so far, as well as a more nuanced strategy going forward, allowing for greater regional and situation-based variations.
One should keep in mind that the vaccination being done is based on research over Covid -19 and not for its mutating cousins like ‘Delta variant’ or else which infects and spreads fast and more fatal than the Covid-19. Experts feel that the likely third wave will have the majority of cases infected with the Delta or new variant. A report appeared today quoting the Tamil Nadu Health Secretary, said that more than 80 per cent Covid-19 patients in Tamilnadu are affected by the Delta variant. The fact should enlighten the people and the administration to pursue the precautions, prevention and preparations for taking the fight with Covid head-on without lowering the guards.
