Approaching the four figure mark Regulate incomings

Approaching the four figure mark and if the current trend is taken into consideration, Manipur will see the number of infected rise to 1000 well before June comes to an end. What happens after that should leave no one in doubt as the general observation says that July may well be the time for Manipur to see the peak. Nine hundred was the figure as on June 21 and it will take just two/three days for the State to join the one thousand group and this is the grim reality. The only bright spot is the good recovery rate with the number of recovered persons put at 250 so far. Fortunate for Manipur that till date the virus has not claimed anybody’s life but this should not lull anyone into a sense of complacency. There could be many reasons for the good recovery rate, with the virus losing its potency or the people wired with good and strong immunity system, but the fact is the number will continue to rise. The priority is obviously to ensure that there is no community spread of the virus and this is where it becomes important for all to extend their co-operation and strictly follow the SOPs laid down by WHO, the ICMR and the State Government. It is also obvious that there is spread of the virus within the quarantine centres set up and this is where it becomes very, very important for all in the quarantine centres to stick to protocols. Apart from the rising number of positive cases, it is also apparent that there is huge pressure on the many quarantine centres set up all over as well as the hospitals which have been marked as centres to treat COVID-19 positive people. At the moment, RIMS, JNIMS, UNACCO Covid Care centre and the District Hospital at Bishnupur have been marked to treat the positive cases, but with more than 600 people still  needing treatment, one can imagine the stress that must have been mounted on these centres.
What are the ways forward to ease the mounting pressures on the quarantine centres and the hospitals ? No easy answer here, but this is a point which should have been deliberated by the Government earlier. At the moment, regulating the return of natives from different cities across the country should have been taken up much earlier. It is to ease the strain on the quarantine centres and the hospitals that flight services have been suspended till June 28. Train services too have been suspended for the time being, but there is a report that two trains will be coming with returnees on June 24 and 25. The situation is understood and so is the course of action taken up by the Government and it is for this very reason why The Sangai Express had suggested that the incoming flights be regularised the moment flight service resumed bringing back thousands of natives of Manipur from different parts of the country. Now with the quarantine centres under stress and with more and more people testing positive, the suggestion made back then has become all that more important now. Regulate the inflow of people, for there is so much that the infrastructure in place here can absorb. This is the basic fact. The cases will increase and Manipur should put forward its best foot with all details worked out meticulously. This is the only way to ease the pressure and take the fight to the virus.