Amid a 2nd surge

As the virus appears to spread much quicker than the first phase, efforts are being made to ramp up the health infrastructure across the State but focus on ‘test, track and treat’ strategy seems to have slipped

Around mid-April in 2020, when the pandemic was just unfolding amidst a strict lockdown, the State was witnessing about 30 cases a day with a testing capacity of 2,000 samples per day. Now, a year after witnessing the peak of over 10,000 cases and about 100 deaths a day and 9.9 lakh caseload, the State is in for a much worse situation and it is evident from the rising number of infections by the day. In the second wave, the daily tally already reached close to the first wave’s peak by witnessing 10,759 cases on Thursday, thanks to the rapidly spreading virus and unrestricted activity at public places like markets, malls, theatres, places of worship, educational institutions and others which were the last ones to be opened up for the public when the lockdown was lifted in a phased manner last year. Though the State has adopted the 'test, track and treat' strategy to face the second wave, not enough resources are being put to use as the focus was more on providing vaccination to eligible beneficiaries. Only police department has been enforcing the mask rule at public places. Some of the district administrations ignored informing the public about the containment zones in their areas. The onus is also on people who have been ignoring COVID-appropriate behaviour despite witnessing the havoc caused by the pandemic once.