MAPUSA: Porvorim MLA Rohan Khaunte in a letter to Chief Minsiter Dr Pramod Sawant suggested that government should go for a complete lockdown of 15 days and thereafter review the situation.
Khaute’s recommendations include immediate sealing of borders, which is the need of the hour since neighbouring States like Karnataka and Maharashtra and COVID negative certificate should be made compulsory at the borders. In addition, transportation of essential commodities should be allowed only with passes which will avoid the quarantine tourism trend to repeat itself unlike the first COVID phase.
Khaute further stated that State needs to improve the turnaround time on test results and start treatment on symptomatic patients on priority basis.
He suggested cross utilization of ambulances for private and government hospitals and using nurses from private hospitals to assist in the vaccination drive.
Letter further recommends the Government to tie up with call centers to reduce the panic within people and promptly provide the status on availability of beds, oxygen and ventilators.
Decentralisation of the powers will enable local MLAs and their respective Deputy Collector in charge to make a faster impact to reduce cases. Local MILAs and Panchayats need to be taken into confidence on every step as they know their Constituency better and would be able to assist the Government to resolve the grassroots level problems in their area.
Health Centre should plan vaccinations by bifurcating the people coming for their first and second dosage with separate timings.
Health Department should look into the MIS of the people coming for vaccination so as to segregate the slots and priority should be given to Senior citizens/ disabled persons and they should preferably be given a fixed allotted time to get their vaccine
He also insisted that in the age group of 18-45 age, priority should be given to co-morbid persons and clarity needs to be given by the Government regarding the vaccination dates of different age groups in order to avoid panic.
