As the cases of COVID-19 has shown a disturbingly upward trend across India and while we are all looking at each other with sombre and despair, Union Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba has conveyed a sense of hope in advising the States to look at adopting the ‘Bhilwara model’ of ruthless containment to curb the spread of the contagion.
Bhilwara district in Rajasthan, as per the last census is inhabited by over 24 lakh people and has so far reported 27 positive cases and two deaths. But why are we discussing about it nationally? It is because no new Covid-19 cases have been reported in a week, while 13 patients have recovered so far. Kudos to the district administration for laying out and implementing a plan of containment which is now called, ‘the Bhilwara model’.
As per reports, the strategy adopted by Bhilwara district administration is quite simple, in a nutshell. It is complete isolation of the district, mapping of the hotspots, door-to-door screening, aggressive contact tracing and augmenting and increasing quarantine and isolation wards and putting in place a proper monitoring mechanism for rural and sub-urban areas. Besides, as per media reports the isolation of Bhilwara district has been absolute, without any regard for convenience of people as in normal days, with the only priority being the stopping of further spread of the contagion. The nice part of the whole story is, aggressive door-to-door screening has in fact yielded a good result, as about 22.39 lakh people got screened more than once. It has helped in ruling out the probabilities forever and ensuring positive cases with relative certainty.
To carry out the whole exercise, 1,937 teams were constituted, and more than 4 lakh houses were surveyed between March 22 and April 2. And in the process, nearly 14,000 people with influenza-like symptoms were identified who were put on watch. In addition to that, a thorough follow up was carried out, to check if any of them were exhibiting the symptoms of novel Coronavirus.
Further, the action that took place in Bhilwara district witnessed two phases of activity. It is learnt that, firstly, much before a nation-wide lockdown was imposed, Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure was invoked and imposed in the district, which made gatherings of five or more persons unlawful, and under such circumstances only essential services were allowed and district border was sealed. Further, adequate steps were taken to ensure that no gaps remained, and the district administration of all neighbouring districts cooperated in all possible manners to seal their borders with Bhilwara. Secondly, in phase two, even more stringent steps were taken, since all services excepting police and health services were completely shut down. The containment was absolutely ruthless and there was no leniency that was shown, and it was ensured that, there was no loophole in the process of the enforcement.
The process that followed soon after the isolation of the district was medical teams went on for cluster mapping, which was instrumental for identification of positive cases and after that, certain areas were identified and that followed continuous screening of suspected cases. Not only that, in addition to the entire exercise the district administration went on a disinfecting spree, where each and every part of the district, from the containment zones and buffer zones, and hot spots where positive cases have been detected, including Government vehicles were disinfected. In the entire exercise of screening, the basic strategy was to emphasise the epicentres of infection and the migrated groups, with this, a clear assignment was given to each team, which included the areas to be covered by each team, with one supervisor for ten teams. It is also learnt that, dedicated Covid-19 hospitals were set up, and even about 27 hotels were converted into quarantine centres which have 1,541 rooms and another 7,620 people were home quarantined. Apart from all of this about 24×7 control rooms were set up.
But all of these stringent measures were not bereft of ensuring that, humanity was not left in the lurch. After all starvation shouldn’t be killing us before corona does, else the entire exercise shall defeat the purpose of our fight against the pandemic. There was door to door supply of essentials like, groceries, fruits, vegetables and milk. Apart from that, the supply of raw and cooked food was ensured for the poor and the needy, and fodder for cattle was also distributed. What made the achievement possible in Bhilwara is, once the plan was ready for implementation, there was absolute non-interference from the Government or any other side.
The model seems worth adopting, principally because of the fact that, even though we have entered the third week of lockdown but there has been no stoppage in the spiralling of the rate of infection in our country; and as per the latest Indian Council of Medical Research(ICMR) reports, out of the total 5,911 Severe Acute Respiratory Illness patients, 104 tested positive for Covid-19 and of them 40 didn’t have any travel history outside India or any contact history with a known Covid-19 case, which is enough of a hint about community spreading.
It is now clear that, any phase of lockdown, extension of lockdown, re-lockdown shall fail to ensure the effective containment of the Covid-19 situation, until and unless we ensure absolute lockdown; but not without ensuring with diligence that, the essentials of living are provided to the people with ease and proper planning. Lockdown after all is to save life, but doesn’t mean to take away life owing to starvation or absence of proper medical care to the needy.
(The writer is a lawyer and public policy expert. He can be reached at sjyotiranjan3@gmail.com)