GN 10 Forget vaccine, follow Dharawi and Delhi

The recent news of development of vaccines have created a tendency of carelessness and fearlessness among the lazy and procrastinate.

We still need to discuss the ways and means to contain Covid19 in our own city.The arrival of vaccine cannot be waited for .

Let's take the case of  Muzaffarpur, the main city of North Bihar.

The city famous worldwide for its delicious Lichis is now grabbing headlines due to rapid growth of corona virus disease. 

There was a time when Patna, Munger, Darbhanga and Samastipur were struggling with growing number of cases and Muzaffarpur was smiling with zero corona case. 

This continued upto 10th of May. After that migrant labourers started coming and people continued to live in a careless manner. 

After start of unlock period, the careless became fearless because Police was not raining stricks on their backs.

Today not only the number of cases have risen to bring it at no 3 in Bihar but also people are hiding their cases out of fear and insecurity. 

Can it be controlled?

Is there any instance that a densely populated city or a big city has won war against Covid 19? 

The success of corona control in Dharawi and Delhi has revealed that it can be done in a small as well as big area. 

It can be done in a dense population also. . 

 Let’s talk about Dharawi first. Dharawi is a slum in Mumbai in which 10 lakh people live within an area 1 square mile In a crowded city like Muzaffarpur in Bihar, 5 lakh people reside within 36 sq miles. 

It means population density in Dharawi is 72 times more than in Muzaffarpur.

People are 72 times closer to each other means social distancing is 72 times more difficult in Dharawi compared to Muzaffarpur.

 Dharawi is located within Mumbai where Covid 19 has maximum spread in India and not spared filmstars like Amitabh Bachchan. Mumbai alone has the total cases of more than 3.75 lakh which is more than Bihar+Bengal+telangana+UP + Karnataka taken together.

Dharawi does not have any hospital nor affluent people. 

Despite all negative factors, C-19 spread was arrested in Dharawi before the same could be achieved in Mumbai as a whole.

 This was not by  a miracle.

 This was the result of a systematic and timely approach.

 What is this approach ? 

This can be divided into 4 steps .

1. If the total number of active cases are 200, create a capacity to treat about 1000 patients and to isolate about 20000 suspected. For this you have 
1.  a. School buildings and other public buildings to be converted into isolation centres 
2. b. Voluntary organizations to help isolated patients. For a population of 10 lakh you need a team of about 2500 people including doctors and health workers which is not so difficult to create. 
3. c. Private hospital and clinics to spare their 50-75% beds for C-19 patients 
4.  d. Existing govt hospitals which have doctors and staff but  need PPE,Oxygen,medicines and funds.—provide them, if required, seek centre’s help. 
2. . Don’t hide any case of C-19. Rather go house- to- house and conduct oxymeter test and temperature check of all family members of all houses and swab test for those with symptoms of showing temperature or lack of oxygen.
3.  . Immediately shift all suspected to isolation centres and all confirmed to hospitals.

4 . Make a system that who so ever voluntarily reports with C-19 symptoms is immediately tested and admitted either to isolation center or in a hospital. Availability of beds should not be a problem. 

If this 4 step method is applied in any area, it is sure that further infection would immediately stop and number of cases would first stop rising then start reducing. 

The reason is simple.An infected person walks free and comes in contact with many other people , in the initial 7 days of his infection. After that he develops symptoms and is admitted to hospital. But he gets 7 days to spread the viral disease. If he is tested at his home and is sent to hospital even before he develops symptom, he cannot unknowingly infect other people .

This method can also be applied in big cities like it was done in Delhi. The only thing needed is to divide the entire city in small sectors, around isolated places wherever covid cases have occurred. 

In Delhi apart from these methods, great emphasis was given on wearing mask . When you wear a mask, you start taking care of other things also. This is because you start feeling that you are in a danger situation and any act of carelessness can cost you very high.If you don’t wear a mask you feel that danger ais far away and you are safe. 

Hiding of cases by any state govt is the biggest mistake. If there is a flood or earthquake which causes one time damage and no multiplication, you can very well hide. But if you hide small number of covid cases , it will go on increasing and ultimately the large number would be impossible to hide.

Also if dead  corona patients are allowed to be cremated alongwith other dead people, the outbreak from the cremation ground would be horrible.The whole family or the whole lot of people accompanying the dead body would get infected in a day.

 Hiding of cases by individuals is another mistake but it is mainly due to poor medical facilities and high infection risk in hospitals. If these things are improved and hospital beds are made available easily and timely, nobody will hesitate to reveal his covid 19 symptoms.