Mass testing soon promise from CMTest, Trace, Treat

Test, Trace, Treat. The three magic Ts in the fight against the Coronavirus and it is heartening to hear the Chief Minister announcing that the Government will soon go in for mass testing. Albeit via the Rapid Antigen Test method and while this model is understood to return false negatives, at least this is sticking to the magic formula of the three Ts. Already 50,000 such testing kits have been distributed to different districts and another one lakh kit is expected anytime soon, according to the Chief Minister. This is indeed one of the better news that have come amid the fight against the virus which is infecting at will and claiming lives in double digits on a single day for quite some time now.  Top this off with the plan to conduct house to house testing in vulnerable areas and in containment zones. All progressive moves to take the fight to the virus, one may add, and this is where it becomes important for the BJP led Government here to take all political parties along with the efforts to flatten the curve. As stated earlier here in this column, take all the MLAs and the other elected representatives such as members of the Zilla Parishads, ADC members, NGOs which have wide influence and go about with the task of taking up the mass testing exercise. This is when everyone need to come together and work under one platform and under one agenda, and that is to break the transmission chain of the virus. Along with this, it is time for the Government to seriously start investigating or studying the root cause of the rapid spread of the virus and once identified take up corrective measures. After all the people cannot be told to stay indoors for an indefinite period of time.
Politics of co-operation, this is what is needed at this point of time. And who better placed than the Chief Minister to throw open the doors for others, even the Opposition to come in and share thoughts and strategies to make the fight against the virus more meaningful. The Government will also need to listen to seasoned officials and not take everything with a pinch of salt. The more inputs there are, the better options there will be before the Government. The other political parties too should see this as the opportune moment to learn to work together and make the fight against the virus more meaningful and fruitful. People may be fined, detained and penalised for not following the SOPs laid down by the Government, but the time says that the State now needs more than SOPs and that is for all political parties, political leaders belonging to different political parties to and officials to come together and discuss strategies to neutralise the rapid spread of the virus. New thoughts should emerge from the lockdown days.