The unlock has started in Jammu & Kashmir as it has been also allowed in many other parts of the country but the situation is yet expand to the levels of full control over the spread of the pandemic. While the no of daily deaths of covid 19 patients has gone below thirty across Jammu & Kashmir the number of daily positive cases across Jammu & Kashmir is still above two thousand. Quite satisfying it is that the numbers are declining in Jammu, Srinagar and some major towns where the surge in the intensity of the pandemic was very high in April when lockdown was imposed across Jammu & Kashmir but the issue of bigger concerns is that even the districts where the intensity of the pandemic has reduced drastically have been put in orange zone category. Since the observation of the health scientists is that data about the spread of the pandemic is only reliable factor showing increase or decline in it’s intensity, the official data about daily numbers of tests, identified positives, and deaths is most crucial for checking the intensity of the pandemic keeping in view the fact that people testing positive for covid-19 pandemic are ineligible for vaccination at least for six months after testing negative for the covid-19 pandemic. Since the deaths are from the positives of the covid-19, the decline in the no of positive cases would consequently lead to a decline in the no of daily covid deaths after a minimum time span of 15 days. So human wisdom demands that both the asymptomatic and symptomatic covid 19 patients are tested in the designative covid-19 testing labs across Jammu & Kashmir. In the prevailing situation there is no short cut to the procedure that all the people coming in the contacts of covid-19 infected people are also tested in time and health specialists have to ensure that as a precautionary measure not even a single person coming into the contacts of the covid-19 infected persons goes untested.
Though health system is responding well to reduce the no of deaths and also the no of positive cases even after the spread of the pandemic through the population but people of all shades have to keep in mind that dip in the number of cases and deaths from October last year till March this year generated a sense of recovery from the spread of the covid-19 pandemic as a result of which the start of the second wave due to violation of covid containment guidelines by the people themselves led to an unprecedented rise in the intensity of the pandemic.
Now if only high-risk contacts are tested, many are likely to turn positive for covid -19 and since many people coming into contacts with covid-19 infected persons go untested the no of covid positives does not come down with the intensity the no of daily deaths are reduced. Since identified positive persons cannot infect others as they are isolated, the high trends of the isolation is best suited to the covid-19 containment strategy announced by the health & medical education department. Though health system is responding well to reduce the no of deaths and also the no of positive cases even after the spread of the pandemic through the population but people of all shades have to keep in mind that dip in the number of cases and deaths from October last year till March this year generated a sense of recovery from the spread of the covid-19 pandemic as a result of which the start of the second wave due to violation of covid containment guidelines by the people themselves led to an unprecedented rise in the intensity of the pandemic. So while aggressive testing and fast track vaccination drives are the only two viable measures for containing the covid-19 pandemic, people have to strictly follow the covid appropriate behaviour with the motive of blocking the return of any other high intensity wave of covid-19 pandemic in coming months say till the end of the year or beginning of the next year.
