August saw a drop in COVID cases, recording the least since February this year with 2809 new infections and a test positivity rate that has consistently remained below three per cent and a recovery rate that is above 97 per cent. There were single days in May when the number of cases were higher than the August monthly total. In that sense Goa is far better off from what the situation was at the height of the second wave, but this is no time for complacency, and the health authorities are well aware of this, and hence the appeals from officials not to ignore the precautions that have been mandated.
The fresh concern of the health authorities are the festivals that are coming up. Health officials have already appealed to the people to follow appropriate COVID behaviour during Ganesh Chaturthi next week. This appeal cannot be ignored, especially since they have pointed out how ignoring pandemic practices led to a major surge of cases in a State in South India. They were referring to Kerala, that post Onam has seen a huge surge in cases. Kerala was already showing a rise in cases before Onam, but the State is now adding over 30,000 cases a day, when on August 22, the number of new cases was 10,402. In the matter of over a week it has gone up three times.
Earlier this year, the country had been extolling the Kerala model in containing the COVID spread, it had been touted as the best, but it all changed in the last three months, and currently over 50 per cent of the country’s new cases are coming from Kerala. The State has re-imposed restrictions, but this may be too late to quickly bring down the numbers. It may take weeks before Kerala begins to see a substantial drop in cases again.
The role festivals have played in increasing COVID cases was evident last year in Goa when infections rose in late-August and September 2020. Last year, during this period in the space of just ten days, Goa’s COVID-19 caseload had shot up by almost 5000 to go from 15,027 on August 26, 2020 to 19,863 on September 4, 2020. It went on increasing and September was the worst affected month of 2020 and of the first wave. That just didn’t prepare the State for the devastating second wave and the month of May 2021 when new cases crossed 64,000 in that month.
So can Goa keep the third wave at bay? And will following pandemic precautions help? Experts across the world continue to stress on physical distancing, wearing masks, avoiding crowded places as the best means of keeping the virus away. Over 18 months after the virus spread quickly across the world, that appears to be the only way to stay away from infections, to bolster the vaccination drive that is currently underway. The results of this will be known in the weeks ahead by the rise or fall in cases.
Goa, however, is far from the target of achieving herd immunity as it has got 35 per cent of the eligible population vaccinated with both doses, and herd immunity can be reached when at least 60 to 70 per cent of the people have been fully immunised. The State is still at about half that figure. The good news is that 95 per cent of the population has received the first dose, which should signify that in the coming weeks, much of the population will have taken both doses. Goa, therefore, could well be almost fully immunised by the end of the year. Until then all precautions will have to be followed to keep the third wave at bay.
