Even as the world has begun to open up, and countries across the world are dropping any and all forms of restrictions put in place to curb the spread of Covid, the world is seeing a resurgence in cases, a worrying sign as more cases translates to more deaths even though the severity of the virus is reduced.
On Sunday, the WHO shared that the world saw an 8% increase in Covid cases detected with more than 11 million reported, despite a significant reduction of testing occurring worldwide. Primary causes for the spread, the WHO has said, is owing to “misinformation” that has spread across the world which has meant that people have not been taking precautions seriously “assuming” that all variants of the virus now onwards will remain mild or that the pandemic is ending.
As of today, no one in the scientific community has declared the pandemic as ended or even that the currently spreading variants of the virus are “mild”. The dominant variant spreading across the world right including in Europe and even China is Omicron that is known to re-infect even those who have been already infected.
Further, mild is a subjective term and can only be used to make broad, general concerns about the rates of hospitalisation among those infected but certainly cannot be used to refer to the symptoms experienced by the individuals who have been infected.
Back here in Goa, and in India, for now, cases are the lowest they have ever been with the number of people being declared as infected is barely a dozen to two dozen. This, in part, is due to the low testing numbers with several persons who are infected dismissing it as a seasonal flu and not showing up for testing. The low testing and resulting low numbers lulls us into a false sense of security that the virus has almost passed us over and is no longer a threat, which according to the WHO, it clearly isn’t.
The people have been longing for the end to the pandemic for more than two years now and have finally found themselves in a position to go out and enjoy themselves. Travel and tourism has picked up as well as live events and sports which by and large wasn’t possible over the past two years.
That said, the government -- both at the national and at the state -- need to prepare for the inevitable rise in cases that could come two to three months from now. The Goa government, which was supposed to set up a genome sequencing machine after the first wave passed, is still to get the machine operational despite one and a half year having passed since the announcement was first made.
Instead, here in Goa we have a situation where we do not even know who the health minister is going to be. If the health department changes hands, the challenge will be to ensure that the new minister is brought up to speed with the department leading to further delays in decision making.
While the people cannot be faulted for letting their guard down, the government cannot be making the same mistake. It is of utmost importance that the government makes sure it has adequate spare capacity to deal with the rush that will eventually come. It’s not as if the spare capacity will not come handy should it be needed for treating regular patients.
It’s better to be prepared than to repent.
