THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2024
Despite a massive surge in cases in the State, Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant has taken a U-turn on his earlier statement and now said that there is no community transmission of COVID-19 in Goa. Community transmission is generally accepted as someone who has got infected had no known contact with another confirmed case nor travelled from a country badly affected by the pandemic, which is taken to mean that the virus is moving freely in the community. However, the Goa government says there is no official accepted definition for the term, even as the Chief Minister had admitted a few days ago that there was community transmission in the State.
The CM also said that the virus is not in the air, which ICMR and World Health Organization (WHO) have maintained, but are clear that it remains suspended for a while in the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes. The major issue is the droplets on the ground, which people carry home unknowingly. WHO has issued guidelines on how to manage community transmission, but their definition of what it is has been rather vague and hence helps countries to deny the community transmission stage. Medical experts in Goa now say the truth of community transmission is not something that should even be up for debate at this point. They say the virus is here and is infecting people and it’s time to act and not debate the nature of infection or transmission.
We need to understand that we have reached a stage wherein we are infecting each other and that is the true definition of community transmission. Playing around with words like local transmission and community transmission will not help. The CM insists that contacts have been traced but tracing the source is now immaterial and amounts to a waste of time and manpower in a State with limited resources. It is now spreading in the community, that is for certain. By calling the transmission local, the Chief Minister and the government appear to prefer to see this in terms of several small bush fires rather than one wild forest fire.
Instead of playing with words, the government needs to act as if the situation is bad and it is time to do or die. Simply saying “do not panic” is misguiding the people, who are hoping that the government will handle the situation. The government does deserve a pat on back, as they had controlled the pandemic well for two and half months but also needs a stick for letting the virus spread. Now that the situation is here to stay till a vaccine is found, we need to concentrate on improving the healthcare system in rural Goa to handle any increase in infections.
The State had time during the first two lockdowns when there were zero cases that provided an opportunity for the healthcare system to prepare itself. We had the chance to accept and adopt social protection measures, but this was done patchily and the result is that the gains of the lockdown have been lost in the last few weeks as the numbers of infected have risen substantially to over 1400.
Schools, colleges have not started and this situation cannot continue forever. Hence the Chief Minister and his cabinet have to think out of the box to defeat COVID-19.
What stops the chief minister and the government in admitting that the stage is critical? When he said there was community transmission people were alert but now with the U-turn the people will relax again. The CM has to tell people “bhivpachi garaz aasa pun aami sagle melun virusak harovya” (We need to fear but let us join together to defeat the virus).
