Fight against Covid: Take all along : Need to study all aspects
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: May 28, 2021 -

Ramp up testing. Ramp up the three Ts-Test, Trace, Treat.

Delegate authority and take all responsible personalities along in facing the scourge of the virus which is running amok amongst the people.

The statistics should speak for itself. These are some lines of suggestion which may be of help to the Government in the fight against the virus.

It is heartening to hear that the Chief Minister has now started talkig about limiting treatment through home isolation and while this is a welcome change of stance, it would help for the Government to seriously study, why many are more than happy to opt for this line of treatment or rehabilitation despite the fact that one's house may not be ideally suited for home isolation, that is-it is a house with a common toilet and a common bathroom, shared by all members of the family.

This aspect needs to be seriously studied and deliberated. One obviously is the yearning to stay at one's own house and the resultant comfort that comes along with this mode of treatment or rehabilitation.

And top on the agenda would obviously be the availability of food. As Thangmeiband Assembly Constituency MLA Kh Joykisan pointed out some days back, it is a problem for some families to deliver food to folks who stay at Covid Care Centres and this is the reason why he had offered to look after the fooding arrangment of one such Covid Care Centre at Thangmeiband AC.

That there has been no positive reponse from the side of the Government is a different matter, but it should be understood that not all the families have their own private vehicles to drop the day's tiffin to their near ones who may be staying at a Covid Care Centre and not all families may have a member who may always have the time to deliver the food.

Such an issue could be one reason why many opt for home isolation. The Government obviously may not be in a position to arrange the food for all the inmates staying at different Covid Care Centres, and this is where it becomes important to rope in the service of everyone concerned.

For starters why not rope in the services of the 60 MLAs, irrespective of party affiliations and let them look after the food supplied to the inmates in their ACs?

Each family may cough up a minimum fee for the food but arranging the logistics, such as cooking and delivering the same to the inmates may be given to each MLA, who can cover the Covid Care Centres at their respective Constituency.

There is also the question of how many Covid Care Centres are in operation right now. Increasing the number of such centres can go a long way in helping the Government to limit the number of people under home isolation.

Apart from studying whether there is provision of separate toilet, separate bathroom, separate room etc for the Covid infected person, the Government will also need to study how well a family is placed to supply food to the positive person once he is asked to move to a Covid Care Centre.

This is where the offer of the Thangmeiband AC MLA gains credence. Involve all the sixty MLAs in arranging the food for inmates staying at Covid Care Centres in their respective Constituencies.

This would ensure not only taking all people's representatives along in the fight against the virus but also ring out the message that it is everyone's responsibility to take the fight to the virus.

Such an approach can go a long way in persuading people not to opt for home isolation, which could be one major reason for the rapid spread of the virus here.