Need pause to interrupt transmission, key members of Govt’s Covid-19 activity drive ‘push hard’ for nationwide lockdown

Some members of the Covid-19 activity drive, a technical skilled physique that advises the Central Government, are “pushing hard” for a nationwide lockdown, The Sunday Express has learnt.
The fierce surge in circumstances, triggered by an infectious — and, presumably, extra deadly — variant, these specialists argued, threatens to overwhelm the already creaking well being infrastructure. India Saturday reported an unprecedented 4.01 lakh Covid-19 circumstances and three,523 deaths within the final 24 hours.
The activity drive contains specialists from premier well being establishments, together with AIIMS and ICMR, and has met many occasions in the course of the latest surge. The deliberations of those specialists are of significance for the reason that chairperson of the duty drive, V Ok Paul, experiences to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Significantly, this name for a lockdown comes whilst Modi, in his tackle to the nation April 20, had underlined that each one efforts must be made to keep away from a lockdown which must be used solely because the “last resort.”
That day, India had reported 2,59,170 new circumstances and 1,761 new deaths; the case lively load was 21.50 lakh and 1.82 lakh had succumbed to the an infection. Ten days later, the lively case load is at 32 lakh circumstances and the nation has reported 2.11 lakh deaths.
“The Covid-19 task force is trying to say this very aggressively for the last few weeks. That we should tell the people at the top that we should have a lockdown,” a member mentioned. “A nationwide lockdown rather than what we are doing now, in bits and pieces across states, because of the simple fact that it is spreading all over,” a member mentioned.
“We are looking at the wrong end of tunnel. Healthcare infrastructure cannot expand indefinitely, oxygen supplies have been ramped up but still there is shortage given the case load. It’s clear that we have to decrease the cases. It is a human-to-human spread. For at least two weeks, if we are able to stop that, we will decrease the case load. That will help decrease mortality, give some relief to health infrastructure and cut the cycle of transmission,” a member mentioned.
At a crematorium in New Delhi (Express Photo: Tashi Tobgyal)
A lockdown is a blunt instrument and it brings hardship to many sections of the society, particularly the poor and the susceptible – together with migrant employees within the metropolis — however it’s “only acceptable scientific tool to bring the surge under control,” mentioned one other member of the duty drive.
The specialists have flagged three key elements.
One, the rampant transmission can solely be introduced beneath management by a lockdown. “When you say there is community transmission, the whole philosophy of testing, tracking and tracing is actually not that important. Because you don’t know who to trace and track when you have so many cases. The only way out is to prevent transmission by assuming everyone is positive and you have to prevent them from coming in contact. That is a lockdown. This has been done in other countries,” a member mentioned.

Indeed, talking to The Indian Express Friday, Anthony Fauci, certainly one of Covid’s most trusted world voices, mentioned that an “immediate” shutdown for a “few weeks” might put an finish to the cycle of transmission in India. That can even present a window, he mentioned, to take essential “immediate, intermediate, and long range” steps out of this “very difficult and desperate” scenario.
Two, there’s a “growing anger building up” throughout the medical group. “They (the doctors) ask why are we not doing anything to contain the spread. We have ambulance after ambulance lined up, patients pleading, perpetual shortage of oxygen cylinders, there is lot of unrest among doctors. There has to be a pause. Infection among health-care workers is also rising,” a member mentioned.
Mourning the demise of a relative at Batra Hospital in New Delhi on Saturday. (Photo: Gajendra Yadav)
Third, the scenario rising in rural India, specialists mentioned, must be urgently addressed. “We don’t know what is going to happen there. Forget critical care infrastructure, small towns and villages aren’t prepared at all. We cannot live in denial,” a member mentioned. As The Indian Express reported right now, predominantly rural districts in Bihar have seen a 9/ten-fold enhance in case rely as in comparison with the rely in the course of the peak final 12 months.

Several states within the nation are already in some type of lockdown mode. In most states, locations the place folks collect — buying malls, gyms, cinema halls, and so forth, — are shut and there are restrictions on the quantity of people that can assemble for marriages, funerals, and so forth.
In Karnataka, all private and non-private transport is banned. Even grocery retailers are open solely from 6 am to 10 am and factories work at 50 per cent. In Gujarat, as many as 29 cities have night time curfew, when public transport can run at 50 per cent capability. Mumbai has allowed public transport just for important providers. West Bengal has a partial lockdown: no restriction on transport, and retailers are open for a number of hours within the morning and night. Some others like Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Telangana, Andhra, Odisha and Rajasthan have imposed night time or weekend curfews with public transport banned solely throughout curfew hours.