Danger ahead diwali is around the corner and covid is lurking alongside

Danger ahead diwali is around the corner and covid is lurking alongside

weekly rise since mid-September. The worry is about a wave, in which the numbers would just go on rising. As Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray has indicated, a lot of this worry comes from the situation in the West, where the second wave is turning out to be more like a “tsunami”. He is not alone. From Punjab to Tamil Nadu, administrations are warning that the festive season is a crucial time to combat the virus. Yet, many of them are falling short of the task before them.

It’s not just a question of faraway France where the ICU units are nearing saturation or the US which has speed reported the last million infections in just ten days. Kerala, whose early success was sabotaged by “gross negligence” during Onam and Delhi, whose positivity rate has soared from near 5% in mid-October to near 15%, are also cautionary examples. Both densely populated states continue to show overreliance on RAT tests despite being repeatedly urged to increase gold standard RT-PCR testing instead. Not only is this a nationwide problem, there is not even transparency about the scale of it.

Another problem is that nationwide testing is stuck around the level achieved back in August. The flawed notion that increased cases result from increased testing also continues to find oxygen, with Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain being the latest offender. The virus is here to stay in the foreseeable future, given the level of community transmission that has already taken place. Proper quantity and quality of testing is a key tool to keep it in check, to keep any new waves from growing into tsunamis.

ICMR has recently given an advisory for the use of indigenously developed Feluda test, which is conducted on a paper strip like a pregnancy test. At 96%, its ability to detect true positives is in the same range as the RT-PCR test, and much better than the RAT’s ranging between 50.6% to 84%. This alternative should be scaled up with urgency. As for the festivals at hand, one way states can encourage citizens to celebrate them safely is by emulating Rajasthan and mandating masks. After the great impoverishment of India’s stringent nationwide lockdown, we cannot go down that path again if the pandemic resurges. Prosperity itself demands the safest Diwali.