FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 2024
AX ESMERALDO GOMES
To a common man, ‘Covid-curfew’ is surely better than ‘Lockdown’, provided it is successful in its purpose. On May 9, when a15-day Covid curfew was kicked off in Goa, Chief Minister, the administrative head, had speculated that if people cooperate, the ‘Covid deaths’ would drop in 8 days. Meanwhile lack of infrastructure to cope up to the large scale needs, added to the woes. Covid positive-cases and deaths sustained, leading us now to two more extensions of curfew. If we consider the augmentation of hospital beds, oxygen, drugs, medical attention etc, not perceived earlier, now made up to enhance the logistics needed, problems such as the ill-planned immunisation and indifference to people’s cooperation to a considerable extent, shall still remain. How do we hope and pray not to have further extension of Covid curfew under these circumstances?
For a 200 crore vaccine requirement in India, the concerned planners instead of procuring vaccine from different sources in shortest possible timeframe, were defeated, as if caught napping, with their priorities unknown, by the sudden surge of Covid virus in its second phase. This demanded increased hospitalisation and culminated into higher death rates. Today, hardly 10% of population is immunised in spite of one year lead time. Covid Positive rates and deaths galore. The inventory of vaccines produced and dispensed does not tally. What is required now is truth, sincerity and higher order moral courage to accept the failure and give confidence that all of us will be immunised at least as declared now by December 2021. I recall, years back in Norway, an incident where there was sudden bombing in Oslo near Prime Minister’s office building by a single terrorist, who further killed school children attending a camp in the nearby island. There was a delay in counter measures. The final tally was 77 dead, several wounded and property destruction. Tackling the situation, their Prime Minister stood up to say “Sorry! I could have done better.” Is it not a wishful thinking that such ownership of fault /debacle should be available amidst us to provide transparency and confidence? Even in its absence, now we expect at least to know the ‘modus operandi’ as to how the immunisation will be completed till Dec. 2021 so as a common man plans the duration of the restriction of his movements.
Social distancing and face mask
Apart from immunization, two main practices that are available within us to prevent the present virus are (i) social distancing and (ii) the wear of self face-mask. Do we require punitive methods to force these practices to save our own lives? What should have been generic within us, thanks to the government which justly attempts to accomplish through curfews. But the side effects are the restrictions of our freedom of movement. Hence persuasion and co-operation is invoked and appealed through various ways. Strategies and task forces are conceived, such as (i) Strengthening home monitoring mechanism (ii) Door-to-door surveillance (iii) Hiring manpower to fight shortage, etc. The common, visible methodology so far appears that of a “Tree” system, wherein the roots and the trunk are formed by government administrative machinery of ministers, bureaucrats and govt. officials in a ‘boss’/‘subordinate’ structure. Its allied branches are: Police departments, Judiciary, publicity, etc. Apart from shortage of manpower, it suffers from parasites criticising at every step as if attempting to pinch umbilical chord affecting the baby’s life in the womb. Thus the system is slow and intermittent in giving results.
System needs accountability
A human life saving system needs accountability of implementation by all humans, where concern for life exists. If we could modify the above system to involve all the publicly elected members irrespective of political parties and oppositions, would it not be more effective the life saving through social distancing and wear of the face masks? A “ring” system is suggested here for the state of Goa which may be operated as follows: Forty MLAs form one ring, monitoring every day their respective constituencies through their ‘zilla panchayat’ members, and social activists/workers. If they can canvass to secure votes from the electorate, surely they can improvise and innovate methods to correct the wrong habits and minimise, if not, eliminate defaulters in social distancing and wear of protective gear. All the members of the ring shall be equal. They should necessarily publish the findings on regular basis and interact with each other to evaluate the comparative analysis. Constituency wise, statistical analysis, fixation of targets, are yet another tools for time bound decrease and sustain the positive rates to zero level.
Systems developed on the basis of above mentioned ‘model’, shall go a long way to eliminate the causes due to wrong habits and prompt for right human behaviour, especially where the population is dense. It serves also as a bond between the elected member and his voter on long term basis. It can be monitored for a long time even after the pandemic is eradicated. Finally, may it be known that the prevention of virus to save human life is everybody’s business.
(The author is a retired engineer from Dandevaddo, Chinchinim)
