The worst nightmare of Goans appears to be turning into reality with the spike in COVID-19 cases at Mangor Hill, Vasco. On Wednesday, Goa saw its biggest one-day spike in cases as 47 COVID-19 positive persons were found in one day, while the next day another 31 cases came to light. This has taken the State tally to 157 cases from the existing 79 on Monday. The tally of active cases also increased four-fold from 22 in just three days. While the day was all about the Mangor cases, the shocking news came from Dona Paula wherein a two-year-old girl, who had returned from Hyderabad, tested positive, while her parents tested negative. The development has led to many Dona Paula residents panic buying groceries expecting the area to be declared a containment zone.
While the government is still investigating the exact cause of such a rapid increase of cases in Mangor Hill, it has to accept the responsibility for some faulty policies which need to be corrected immediately. The main one is allowing travelers to go home after having collected the swab. One fails to understand why a person who arrives by air, train or road, is allowed to go home after the swabs have been collected. Why are they not asked to wait at the same place for a few hours till the reports are released? It has been announced that the TrueNat test result is out within a few hours. So why not ask the people to wait whenever they are tested for some more time? Here is another instance: a lady who came from Mumbai and attended a wedding at Calangute was allowed to go home though she came from a Red Zone.
We understand that Goa has a small airport and it may become tough to handle hundreds of patients at one time and that keeping them in an enclosed space for a long time can risk the health of other travellers. If there is a space constraint, the airport authority and the State government can easily make use of the pay parking building which is lying vacant for almost two years now. This place can be used as a temporary quarantine facility for the people who need to spend only a few hours here. Once the test results are out, persons can be sent to the hospital or back to their home. Besides, it’s wrong strategy to bring people from three check posts – Keri, Patradevi and Dodamarg – to Asilo hospital in North Goa that is a distance of about 30 km. The government can easily acquire some places closer to the border and use them for isolating people for a few hours. The State Executive Committee (SEC) has planned a collection centre at Pernem College, a similar place can be identified for the check posts of Keri, Dodamarg, Polem and Mollem.
In the current scenario people arriving in Goa are sent home putting all the people in the locality where they reside at risk as many of the travellers do not abide by the rules of staying home and not venturing outside till the reports are out. The current policy of the government defies logic. It is natural for a person who comes home after a long time to meet with a few people, close family, other relatives and neighbours, which puts all these people at risk of contracting COVID-19. The government has to rethink and make those arriving in Goa wait for a few hours rather than putting thousands at risk. While the State government did well to contain the virus in the last two and half months, one would not want the State to falter when it matters most.
