Amid signs of an impending wave, Govts need to scale up testing for the virus

Here we are, trying to handle Omicron, and the French have already discovered the latest, the B.1.640.2 variant, named IHU. Goes to show how unpredictable the virus is. One hopes studies indicating that Omicron is soft compared to previous variants are not making the States complacent. Fresh cases are on the rise in India and the positivity rate is touching or crossing 10 per cent. In Maharashtra, occupancy rates in hospitals are going up. These are clear signals of an impending wave of the Coronavirus pandemic and the States are still reluctant to impose severe restrictions on people’s movement. Attempts at making people follow safety protocols have failed. Many still avoid wearing masks. People throng markets and places of worship. Imposing a night curfew is not a reassuring step. What is needed is restricting movement in the daytime without impacting economic activity. That can only be achieved by making work from home compulsory for all except the frontline workers and the manufacturing sector. The odd-even system in Delhi has reduced the crowds to some extent. It is time to be decisive; otherwise, all the planning done and infrastructure put in place for a new wave would go to waste. The Delhi Government, for instance, said it will declare a red alert if the positivity rate is over five per cent for two consecutive days. It has ranged between six and eight per cent in the last 48 hours, but the decision is still in abeyance.

Instead, some decisions have been taken which raise eyebrows. The Metro has been allowed to run at full capacity instead of 50 per cent to reduce passenger queues outside stations. You cannot ‘un-crowd’ the stations by crowding the trains. Mumbai is facing the fresh wave heat, but the Government plans to wait for the daily caseload to top 20,000 before it imposes a lockdown. In their ways, Delhi and Mumbai are losing the initiative by their indecision. It is easy to understand why. They do not want a repeat of last year when the lockdown led to the migration of millions of workers and the unmanageable chaos it led to. There is also a consensus in the country, going by experience, that a lockdown that arrests economic activity will not be popular and should be the last resort. What the States ought to do apart from strict restrictions is ramp up testing because that data alone tells us when to introduce or lift containment restrictions. And that is the crucial area we are lacking in. On January 3, 11,54,302 samples were tested in the country; quite a low figure that says nothing about the depth and speed of spread. Daily testing dropped drastically since September, hovering between 9-12 lakh tests in the first week of December. Compare this with the Centre’s target set last May — 4.4-5 million tests per day. During the second COVID-19 wave, 16.8 million tests were conducted every day on an average.