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‘Public involvement key to preventing third wave’
The Hindu
Call for ban on all forms of public gatherings
COVID-19 incidence in Nalgonda district, which was one of the highest in the State during the second wave with infection rates hovering around 30% before implementation of lockdown and nearly half after that, has reduced to below 3% of late. However, people’s response and preparation against the attack, in the possible event of a third wave, appear casual, say officials and observers. Even though many lives were lost, going easy on masks and distancing shows people are not serious, says Waseem, a shopkeeper in the usually bustling Prakasam Bazaar. He calls it “living with short-term memory”.![](/newspic/picid-1269750-20250217064624.jpg)
When fed into Latin, pusilla comes out denoting “very small”. The Baillon’s crake can be missed in the field, when it is at a distance, as the magnification of the human eye is woefully short of what it takes to pick up this tiny creature. The other factor is the Baillon’s crake’s predisposition to present less of itself: it moves about furtively and slides into the reeds at the slightest suspicion of being noticed. But if you are keen on observing the Baillon’s crake or the ruddy breasted crake in the field, in Chennai, this would be the best time to put in efforts towards that end. These birds live amidst reeds, the bulrushes, which are likely to lose their density now as they would shrivel and go brown, leaving wide gaps, thereby reducing the cover for these tiddly birds to stay inscrutable.