With 451 Covid-19 positive cases detected on Saturday (though the daily official bulletin had put the number of total infected at 143), the situation in Jammu and Kashmir sounds alarming. Though panic is no answer to this challenge but both the people and the state administration have to pull their socks and confront the situation in such a way that would ensure that the deadly virus is not provided a field day to destroy human lives. In this regard, as we have repeatedly been insisting in these columns, people have to understand the gravity of the situation and take all precautionary measures to defeat the transmission of the deadly virus. The restrictions may be relaxed but that does not mean that people should behave the way they used to pre-Covid-19 threat. Life styles have to change, human contact is to be minimized and masks are to be made a permanent feature of our daily attire.
Seeing the sudden spurt in the number of Covid-19 positive cases, the Jammu and Kashmir government on Sunday declared eight districts in Kashmir and one in Jammu as red zones. An order issued by Chief Secretary J&K, B V R Subrahmanyam declared all Kashmir districts except Ganderbal and Bandipore as red zones. Ganderbal and Bandipore figure in the orange zone list. In Jammu, Ramban district has been declared as red zone while as Kathua, Samba, Reasi, Udhampur, Poonch, Rajouri and Jammu have been included in the list of Orange Zones. Doda and Kishtwar are the only districts, which have been declared as Green zones as per the order. Though declaring these districts as Red may help administration to control the movement of people and minimize the transmission of virus, but it needs to do more than that. With the number of infected people soaring, the administrative quarantine centres are becoming overcrowded and there is every likelihood that these centres become the hub of infections. Need is to tackle this crisis scientifically and logically. As suggested by several experts, the administration should only shift those infected people to administrative quarantine centres who are symptomatic. Asymptomatic people, testing positive, should be advised home quarantine. That would not only decongest the administrative quarantine centres but would also help containing the spread of virus. Besides, the administration has to wake up to the reality that most of the hospitals in Jammu and Kashmir too have becomes hubs of the virus. There have been some cases where the patients were admitted to the hospitals for different ailments but after remaining indoors, they tested positive for the Covid-19. This is a serious issue which can’t be dealt with on bureaucratic level. The administration has to take doctors and other health experts on board and devise a strategy with their inputs.
