Finally the government of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir has woken upto the challenges posed by coronavirus world over and has declared a state o emergency, however, asking people not to panic. The authorities on Tuesday said that people need not to panic as the situation was being closely monitored in Jammu and Kashmir to identify all suspected cases of the virus. The authorities declared that so far a total of 201 individuals have been contacted in Jammu and Kashmir. These include individuals who either had a travel history to countries such as China, South Korea, Iran, Thailand, Italy, South East Asia etc., or came in contact with persons who had travelled to these countries. 21 suspected cases have been tested till date and no positive case has been reported so far across J&K. The government assured that entire administrative machinery including health department has been further activated and is in a state of full alert and all facilities as required are being put in place.
So far so good, but the track record of Jammu and Kashmir, particularly on health front, has not been so great and therefore people are a bit skeptical. Though the authorities have decided 100 percent self-declaration at the airports of Jammu and Srinagar to trace any such traveller having travel history to the infected countries and further, check-points for passengers travelling by road have been set up at Lakhanpur and Lower Munda (Zig) to identify individuals with travel history to these countries, what people would really appreciate would be to know that whether hospitals here have been readied for any such eventualities. The government need to launch a full fledged awareness campaign in Jammu and Kashmir and tell people about do’s and don’ts. Earlier, when some people returned from China, both to Srinagar and Jammu, the authorities very casually checked them at the twin airports and let them join their families with instructions to remain isolated. Thankfully none of them was infected and that saved the lives otherwise one can’t be sure about home quarantine. Now that some cases have been detected in north India, the authorities here need to be very cautious.
