Covid case count causing unnecessary panic: DAK

Srinagar: The Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) on Sunday said the Covid-19 case count has lost its relevance as it causes unnecessary panic and fear among the people.
“Covid case numbers cause unnecessary panic and fear among the people and they don’t reflect the same as they used to,” said DAK President and Influenza expert Nisar ul Hassan.
Hassan said early in the pandemic, the daily case count was used as a metric because at that time, a rise in cases inevitably led to increase in hospitalisation and death.
“But that has changed now,” he said, adding that with widespread immunity in general population due to vaccination and natural immunity, most of the infections are mild and do not require hospitalisation.
As per the DAK President, “We have reached a point in the pandemic, where we no longer need to identify and manage every single case of the virus. It is time for us to shift our focus on hospitalisation, which is miniscule at this point in time. Relying on case numbers as the metric to decide mitigations will trap us forever.”
Nisar said Covid-19 has entered into an endemic stage and the rise and fall in cases is going to be a routine process.
“It has become yet another infection joining many other diseases that we have learned to live with. We need to deal Covid the way we do other endemic viruses such as the flu,” he noted.
“We are not publicly reporting daily case count of influenza, nor do we pivot what we are doing at a time when cases reach some arbitrary number. We have to take a similar approach for Covid, track case counts internally and alert the public only on hospitalisation and death,” the DAK chief added.
UNI