Mantra of Test, Trace, TreatOn contact tracing

Test, Trace, Treat. The three Ts advocated to take the fight to the virus and while the State Government has launched mass testing exercise at different localities as well as taken up numerous steps to more efficiently treat patients in the hospital, it is not clear how effectively the tracing part is followed. Just how seriously is the tracing part of the three Ts taken  up may best be known by simply asking  a few questions to anyone who has been discharged after testing positive. With the State Government still continuing with the home isolation model, despite the fact that the Delta variant of the virus is much more virulent and despite the growing evidences that more than one member of a family has tested positive, it is extremely important to trace all the possible contacts of an infected person. This observation is also made in the backdrop of the fact that the number of infection continues to rise alarmingly with each day reporting not less than 500 cases. And it is amid this situation that the Centre has decided to send high level multi-disciplinary public health teams to six States, including Manipur. Hopefully the Central team should bolster the efforts taken up to check the growing number of positive cases here and keep the people informed more efficiently. This wouldn’t be the first time for the Centre to depute a team to Manipur to get a first hand account of the steps being taken up to check the growing number of positive cases and one hopes the State Government and the officials concerned are able to reap the dividends of the visit.
The Central team should also hopefully be able to restart the weekly briefing to the media, which started at the suggestions of a team from the Centre during the first wave of the pandemic. Covid Appropriate Behaviour-this is a point which has been stressed and highlighted by all experts to check the spread of the virus and the question is how effectively the people follow the SOPs laid down by the Government. Apart from studying the present trend and giving suggestions on how to deal with the situation, one also hopes that the team from the Centre will give some inputs on how to prepare ahead of the third wave, which so many experts have warned of. Director of AIIMS, Dr Randep Guleria is reported to have stated that the third wave may not come provided people follow Covid norms, and this is where it becomes very important for everyone to realise the responsibility that lies on their shoulder. The process of easing the restrictions has started and this is where it is disturbing to see so many coming out so much so that traffic police personnel are now necessary to be put on duty at some of the more travelled routes such as at the Keishampat traffic point and in front of Raj Bhavan, to name just two locations.