The number of covid-19 cases in Srinagar stands at 1708, highest in any district across Jammu and Kashmir. The deaths due to the pathogen are also highest amongst the districts—44 as on July 12. Amid the spike in the cases, the government has decided to re-impose lockdown in Srinagar and has notified 88 ‘containment zones’. It seems a response to the rising apprehension that the coronavirus pandemic may spin out of control. When such a measure was resorted to earlier, the cumulative cases in Srinagar were in single digit, but snowballed since. In fact, the summer capital of the J&K recorded20 deaths and around 700 covid19 positive cases in the last 11 days alone. Among the 97 fresh cases on Sunday, none was traveler, suggesting that spread is far and wide. The government did not do well to make people wear masks and failed to nudge the public into changed healthy behavior which was pre-requisite for the containing of the virus spread. While some doctors and traders advocated the need for re-imposing the lockdown, the pressures of job and livelihood losses due to the lockdown must have weighed high on the administration as a result of which the lockdown announced is partial in nature. The effects of a full lockdown would run deeper, and relief measures for the disadvantaged must have to be augmented. The government should understand that tight vigil has to be increased across the capital and not just restrict it to containment zones for the success of the measure announced by it. Halfhearted measures could prove disastrous. The government’s latest measure seems to have caught some sections of the industry by surprise. The economy today is in doldrums especially in the aftermath of events of last year. A consultative approach is necessary to plan for the future and the administration must listen and work out a plan with the stakeholders. During the new lockdown phase, the administration should ensure strict compliance in mask-wearing and physical distancing. Above all, make testing universally available and ensure that reports come out on time so that patients are treated as well as isolated earlier for the benefit of the infected and the society at large. The present measure seems to be in the right direction and as has been put, rightly so, by a doctor’s body, “returning to a situation where we will have no control is far worse than a week or two of social measures.”
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