For God's Sake, Increase Individual Protection To Fight COVID : 16 July 2020

  The formatting for the16 July 2020 content was disturbed and hence re-posting same. 

For God's Sake, Increase Individual Protection To Fight COVID : 16 July 2020

The papers are full of the increasing cases of the corona virus across India with the adding of 1 lakh cases in just 3 days. This scenario is alarming with active cases from the infection likely to touch 1 million in the next few days. It is apparent that the top people in government are clueless on the spread of the virus or are deliberately misleading the people. They continue to tout figures of death rate being the lowest inspite of death due to co-morbidities, the recovery rate being the highest in India. All this when compared to the world. The increase in testing and the strategies employed on lockdowns, containment zones etc. etc. This list is long and elaborate but the fact remains that all these measures have not been able to stem the new infections which continue to rise and are random in their spread. It is getting to be 4 months since we had the beginning of the lockdowns but we are in the same position or worse than what we were on the first day. Thus we need to conclude that lockdowns do not work in societal structures like in India. These may be OK for Western societies where dwelling units are relatively segregated and not like in our slums or close housing communities where people are clustered together. Moreover in Western societies people tend to be more disciplined, even Indians who live there, and follow guidelines given by the authorities. While here the guidelines are followed in the exception than by the rule of willingness. Though one must say that the mask rule is being more generally followed. Even then the mask has not proved useful, since its protection is only for namesake and has failed to stop the spread of new infections. The dithering of the government in dealing with the pandemic is letting the people be exposed to greater risk and leaving them direction-less as to how to deal with the virus. The people left to their own assumptions will result  in the number of infections to continue  to rise. Pandering to the pandemic and massaging it to remain spreading is good politics and provides good opportunities for vested interests to make money in terms of getting the people and government to spend money on protection measures and infrastructure, while people to continue to die from the virus. Whether these measures and infrastructure are necessary or work or not to combat the virus is debatable. Thus  there is no need to emphasise that the number of new infections need to be controlled under the present circumstances of the Unlock guidelines which will lead to less pressure on the health administration system. And this can only be done by increasing the protection of individuals. Therefore why the government is not mandating that all citizens when they come out in public should wear face shields, stripped down and adapted PPE's, gloves and also overshoes, the last item being optional, is not understood. The cost of stripped down and adapted PPE's can be all the way down to Rs. 100. They can also be made from weather friendly material and will set off a trend for designing such gear As is happening in mask design. Thus it is not a financial burden for the individual to buy 2/3 sets. Where people can get away by not wearing masks and escape getting caught, it will not be easy for them to do that by not wearing the PPE's and other protective gear since it is more visible. The authorities should be strict in penalising offenders who do not wear the full protective gear with fines. This enhanced protection will definitely reduce the incidence of more infections and be good for the people since it will help in getting back to the normal way of life. With this the government will be relieved from the unnecessary multifarious questions like providing financial assistance to different categories of people, whether to open educational institutions, to hold school/college exams or not, to limit the number of staff in offices etc.etc. Therefore it is time enough we implemented this measure of mandating the wearing of increased personal protection like face shields, stripped down and adapted PPE's, gloves and also overshoes, the last item being optional, urgently, otherwise India will go the way that Brazil & the US has gone in terms of the impact of the virus. One hopes that better sense will prevail within the government or one has to assume that the government is tacitly promoting herd immunity which exposes our lesser privileged communities to infection with more people dying in this category but with no guarantee that the virus will not infect the more privileged class.