On Thursday former Congress President Rahul Gandhi, held a press conference in which he seemed composed in his manner while interacting, did not attack Modi government on handling of health crisis instead came up with constructive suggestions, asking the government for urgent steps that included direct cash transfer to destitute migrants and availing them with the overstocked food grains in government go downs and called for decentralization strategy in which CMs of the state had more say as the fight against Covid-19 was at a state and district level.
It seems Gandhi had prepped himself, instead of volley of provocative questions, as his earlier personal attacks on Modi, he seemed reasonable that “politicizing has been put at halt by him”, “now is not the time for it,” says Gandhi.
As per him ‘lock down’ allows time and space to put in medical resources, to keep pedaling testing rigorously, to not just tracking the virus but chasing the virus, isolating the virus and moving ahead of it. Without massive testing capacity and contact tracing there is no what next! Lockdown is just a ‘pause’ not a solution to the problem. It does not defeat the virus it does stop it for some time.
“Over the last 72 days, our testing rate is 199 out of a million, that works out to an average of 350 tests per district and that is not enough,” says Rahul. However, ICMR said the government was carrying out 24 tests for one positive case whereas Japan tested 11.7 people per one positive; for Italy the number is 6.7, in US it is 5.3; for UK it is 3.4. Can’t say we are testing less.
Lock down is the result as we have no clue about the scale of infection. Thursday brought a total of 12,759 positive cases for the virus and of 420 deaths so far.
On April 14, Prime Minister Modi confirmed extension of nation-wide lock down with some relaxation for a further three weeks. It was nevertheless a big decision. The extension puts fresh pressure on public, the vulnerable, business and the economy. Mr. Modi skated on thin ice for this, however, it seemed a correct decision.
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