SHILLONG, Dec 8: Has Meghalaya Government let its guard down against COVID-19 pandemic?
Eight months since lockdown was first enforced triggering a feverish pitch of activities at various levels to combat coronavirus, today there is a relative air of normality in public life. At a time when fresh COVID-19 cases are being reported on a daily basis, the official machinery seems to have lost much of its intensity, while life has turned almost normal.
Going by the initial days of the pandemic when the state government was aggressively working on plans and strategies to tackle the pandemic, things have relatively eased down in recent times. Gone are days of declaration of micro containment zones through media and public address system. Also palpable is the absence of daily press briefings. Add to it the complete passivity of the local village bodies and volunteer activities.
Many recall that during the early days of COVID, the state government was holding reviews and meetings every single day but now the number of meetings to discuss about COVID-19 has definitely reduced at the top level of the government.
Some residents of the city also recall the days when the government was proactive in announcing about different orders and decisions, besides the containment areas, though the public announcement systems in different localities which is not the case anymore.
Commissioner and Secretary, Health, Sampath Kumar however maintained that the state government was not letting its guard down on COVID-19 and it was vigilant as before. “The meetings at our level is happening frequently and there is no let up from the government,” he said
Admitting that meetings initially were taking place every day, he informed that even now video conferencing with deputy commissioners do take place twice every week and different surveillance units are still active and working round the clock.
He expressed happiness that the cases were under control in the state right now and added that people are now not very fearful of COVID and they understand how to deal with it.
Officials who are hands-on, discount any lack of intensity. Asked if fatigue had crept into the system, an official of the Health department on the request of anonymity said that cases in the state were going down and even the mortality rate had more or less remained the same while maintaining that review meetings do take place even now. Officials however hinted that the fight against the pandemic has gone slightly mild as the other programmes of the Health department were taking backseat.
“This is the year ending so we have to fulfil the targets of other programmes as well and hence the department is now also concentrating on other programmes such as immunization programmes,” the officials said.
Admitting that the scene about the arrival of vaccine has given a breathing space to the state which is continuously fighting COVID for almost a year, the official added that the maternal and child death increased and institutional deliveries went down in the state during the pandemic when the government was concentrating on COVID-19. The senior official of the Health department however stressed on the need to further improve the surveillance system and more enforcement of protocols since the festive season was round the corner.
Meanwhile, East Khasi Hills Deputy Commissioner, Isawanda Laloo said that as per direction from the Health and Family Welfare Department and ICMR guidelines, areas which see a cluster spread of cases are to be contained.
She said that on December 3, the District Magistrate had passed an order for containment in Blocks D, E and F of Madanrting based on the recommendation of the Incident Commander and Medical Officer concerned, wherein 20 cases were detected with no known source in the said blocks.
The order contained these three blocks with a population of roughly 14,000 comprising 3,650 households, in order to ensure no movement takes place, and early detection through house to house surveillance could be carried out. Shops to home-deliver essential items were identified by the sub-localities.
The Surveillance team from the Health department along with the volunteers of the CCMT who were trained by the DSO carried out door to door surveillance and symptomatic, high risk and co-morbid persons were identified for testing. After testing was completed, a total of 44 more persons were tested positive and accordingly, protocol for positive case detection has been followed in which the persons are either shifted to corona care centre, isolated at home, and their contacts identified.
“Earlier, micro-containment was being done in which only the house or apartment having the positive isolated case was being contained for 17 days. However it was seen that micro-containment as such is not effective in preventing local transmission if there is a clustering of cases in the area, as the asymptomatic positive carrier may have been missed out and continues to infect other persons, including immunocompromised and co-morbid. Hence, the concept of ‘micro-containment’ has been done away with.
According to Laloo, for any positive cases are detected in which the persons are isolated at home, orders are still being passed which mandate that the positive cases maintain strict home isolation, with penalties to be imposed if there is any instance of violating quarantine as empowered under the Meghalaya Epidemic Diseases Control Act.
“These orders are shared with the SP, Magistrate, Rangbah Shnong and person concerned for compliance. For persons which refuse to undergo testing, stricter orders are issued. Public announcements are still made in all cases with cluster spread,” she added.