Since March, novel coronavirus disrupted all spheres of normal life across the globe, Jammu and Kashmir included. The case count of Covid-19 continued upsurge and from 1000 cases as on May 15, the tally has now gone well past 18000. Out of these cases, 7667 are active positive, around 10000 have recovered and around 320 have died, mostly in Kashmir. Among all districts, Srinagar tops the list with over 4000 cases and almost 100 deaths. More increase in the number of covid-19 cases is proportional to the stress on the existing healthcare infrastructure. Going forward the situation doesn’t give any confidence. If the present trend continues, the cases are going to be far too many in the near future to be handled by the doctors. More so, when the healthcare professionals are also now indicating that the community transmission might have already set in.
Last week, the government returned to the lockdown, notwithstanding the inconvenience to many people which adds to already difficult economic situation. While there is a need to understand by every single individual that a vicious cycle of imposition and withdrawal of lockdowns cannot be allowed to become the norm and as such efforts should be made by one and all to bend the curve. The reality for the present remains that the cases are increasing and at least 500 are added every day and it being so when testing it not as aggressive as it ought to be. In this backdrop, the markets are opening from July 28 in ‘phased manner’ to allow people to shop for the ensuing Eid-ul-Azha. The divisional commissioner has asked deputy commissioners to ensure markets open with different timings to avoid gatherings and violation of social distancing protocol by the public thronging market places during these three days.
The government needs to run an aggressive awareness campaign and work towards the involvement of the community by charging village, locality elders, mosque managements etc to ensure people follow the safety precautions.
The people are required to take the threat of the covid-19 very seriously. They shall wear masks, maintain social distancing and adopt handwashing etiquettes all the time until covid-19 is defeated which is not far away given vaccines would be available soon.
