As per government, 65 well-equipped hotels and government accommodations will be used as facilities to quarantine people arriving in Srinagar, including those who might have come into contact with the COVID-19 positive cases in Srinagar and other places.
In last 3 days, government said to have accommodated 1196 people travelling from Bangladesh, Ladakh, Bangkok, Dubai, Combodia, UK etc at 24 quarantine facilities.
Also, amid scare over coronavirus, J&K government has directed all administrative secretaries and deputy commissioners to ensure quarantine of all government employees and their relatives who have a foreign travel history since March 1.
Following standard operating procedures, all these persons, mostly Bangladesh return students were isolated soon upon their arrival and then shifted to these well-equipped quarantine facilities, an official spokesperson had said.
Actually, confusion has reigned, among health care professionals and laypeople alike, over when or whether to test patients, quarantine the exposed and isolate the ailing. Part of the problem is a supply shortage that is already growing dire in some places. But another problem is the lack of consistent messages from administration that the worst is yet to come rather than using undercut by blithe assurances that everything is under control. A message was sought to be spread in this regard by deputy commissioner Srinagar Shahid Iqbal Choudhary that “if he shares the daily events none in Kashmir will sleep.” His remarks, as one may call them, came as reports of people violating mandatory screening and quarantine galore in Kashmir.
Besides using hotels and turning them into quarantine facilities, government need to augment other essential equipment such as ventilators.
Also, there is the reality that there are not enough health care workers who are trained and equipped to treat emergent, contagious lung infections in Valley. If those workers fall ill and are themselves quarantined and isolated, as some of them almost certainly will be, given the present lack of protective equipment, more will have to be trained and prepared.
Government needs to pull up socks and ensure to move at a rapid peace to meet the exigencies as also provide better facilities to the people who are now kept for quarantine. On their part, the people who are being quarantined must also need to realize that they cannot have VIP treatment where they can get everything on demand. These are testing times and we all need to stand up so as to defeat the raging enemy, the covid-19.
Govt Must Act Fast
