India must take its anti-COVID response seriously, lest the caseload shoots up

Last week, India reported 39,000 new cases. The figure now stands at 44,000 as against the 50,000 limit set by the empowered group of officers tasked with formulating the nation’s COVID emergency strategy. A breach of the limit would make the system go on full alert. Nearly half the cases are reported from Kerala while fresh cases are reported from Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, apart from Maharashtra. This is not the time to split hair and complain about a few States. The situation should reinforce the need for a national response to the caseload rising anywhere in the country. It is the Delta variant, first discovered in India, at work. Discovered in India last October, it caused the second COVID-19 wave. It has now spread to 124 countries and shows no signs of stopping. Scientists and experts are repeatedly saying that face masks and vaccinations alone can keep it at bay but violations, including not maintaining social distancing, are the country’s bane. It is time the Government explores more stringent non-pharmacological options because the objective is to defer a third wave as long as possible. If that means following China’s example, so be it. China has the world’s toughest, sweeping and zero-tolerant safety enforcement measures in the world. And yet the Delta variant has slipped through. The eastern city of Nanjing, where the first batch of fresh cases was reported from, has nearly been sealed. Such is that country’s response when the tally of fresh cases till Thursday is only 200.

Kerala has done the right thing by announcing a complete weekend lockdown. Selective lockdowns have to be the norm in all districts or blocks in the country where cases are being reported from. The Tamil Nadu Health Minister laments that people in the State are not wearing masks. He says the State’s border with Kerala is being monitored. Such actions need to be part of a comprehensive, joint operation of the Centre and the States that includes heavy screening and quarantine procedures at all border crossings and highway junctions, public transport bases and airports. That is not possible because no national guidelines have been issued as yet, even though Prime Minister Narendra Modi has spoken about it. Many countries have already begun a fresh round of virus testing, cancelled most domestic flights, are placing residential compounds of concern under containment and closing down premises to avoid crowds. These measures are no longer precautionary but have become mandatory. A joint Guangdong-Oxford study of June says the Delta variant reaches a detectable level in an infected person more quickly than before, increases the viral load by a thousand times than before and is rapidly transmissible. The study says timely quarantine and massive PCR testing are the two urgent remedies. India is already forewarned and cannot afford anything less than an institutional response to mitigate the impact of a future wave of the virus.