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| Testing, Tracking, Tracing and Treating | | |
Mahadeep Singh Jamwal
When corona virus is a curse, on the other it is also a realization to an extraordinary chance to improve our facilities and health care infrastructure. Corona virus is one of the deadliest transmissible viruses in recent history. Every day lost in effective response means the looming danger of a surge in infections. The corona virus outbreak hasn’t impacted any sector as much as healthcare and by extension, health tech. From drug manufacturers to hospitals, diagnostic labs and pharmacies, each stakeholder in the value chain faces a compelling need to innovate. The World Health Organization (WHO) has urged countries to test as widely as possible to curb the pandemic, but India has only been testing those who have travelled from affected countries or come in contact with a confirmed case and shown symptoms after two weeks of quarantine. As a result of the narrow testing criteria, sick people with potential exposure to the corona virus are being sent home, and some experts fear that India’s caseload could be much higher than government statistics indicate. Global health experts say the speed and scope of South Korea’s novel corona virus diagnostic capability exhibit impressive and significant lab capabilities that no other countries, including the U.S., can match at the moment. This is a contributing factor to keep in grip the corona virus.
We are required to work on the blueprint to clash with the corona virus based on four parameters: Testing, Tracking, Tracing and Treating. We should follow the tracking and tracing the moving missiles in motion as carrier of the corona virus, the way South Korea maintained i.e. testing followed by extensive tracking and tracing. Once a case was confirmed, the authorities tracked down the movement history of the patient in tracing the people they had contacted and previous travel histories they have undertaken by surveying CCTV footages, cell phone data, monetarily transactions through credit cards. This way they visualized the patients’ anonymized, undisclosed and unidentified location data and made them more accessible to the public to desist contact with such person with positive signs of corona virus. An ‘App’ as “Corona 100m” was introduced that alerted users when they came within 100 meters of the recent whereabouts of a corona virus patient. Simultaneously, the patients were categorized by risk asymptomatic, mild, severe, or critical and treated accordingly. Higher-risk patients, including the elderly and seriously ill, were hospitalized. By contrast, lower-risk patients, such as the young and those showing moderate to no symptoms, were sent to dormitories. Even before the government coordinated its message on social distancing, it began to embrace it of their own accord. Social distancing has been the main weapon of mass protection. It’s less about protecting ourselves, and more that we don’t want to spread this throughout the community. We observe in our country stark contrast to the individualistic attitude towards health advisories when very high level of civic awareness and voluntary cooperation is the need of hour.
In densely populated cities across a globalized world, an emergent zoonotic disease can spread quickly and become a pandemic. The corona has advised us for systemic changes without national borders that can only be activated by governments coupled by individual behavioral changes. We have seen over the past few weeks that governments can take radical action and we can change our behavior quite quickly. It’s cheaper and safer to prevent people from catching and spreading the virus than to attempt to treat huge numbers of cases. All our response measures need to be based on science. There are a lot of myths around corona virus but the countries and individuals basing their responses on what the health professionals are saying are doing better. Our growing sense of urgency, of solidarity, of stubborn optimism and empowerment to take action, can be one thing that rises out of this terrible situation. The Corona has taught us crucial lessons that we needed to learn in order to enter a new era of radical, collaborative action to make us a surviving generation. But the painful stories of our behavior, flashing continuously on national TVs, infringing the most required precautionary measures that too to make secure ‘our self’ testify that we are shortsighted and careless and have scant regard for various advisories. We are well within knowledge that when the COVID-19 crisis began in January, the European Union swiftly sent tons of protective gear and medic’s equipment to China (Hubei) but on date Europe has become one of the main battlegrounds in the war against COVID-19. The million dollar question is why? This all refers in not taking the crises in Hubei seriously and thereby the nations failed to take the precautionary measures well in advance, and shifting to distancing that was most required in the situation. Here in my view the message by Director-General World Health Organization (WHO) on 16 March 2020 that there has not been an urgent enough escalation in testing, isolation and contact tracing, which should be the “backbone” of the global response? He said it is not possible to “fight a fire blindfolded”, and social distancing was not up to the mark. Appears this message impacted the Indian government too. It may be disturbing to the government but one has to bear with this reality that when first three cases in India were reported between 30 January and 3 February in Kerala and all three patients had returned from Wuhan, China the epicenter of pandemic, but it was not taken seriously and our preparations to face the virus transmission moved in a snails speed. But realizing the impact of transmission, the government moved for required measures only after PM appeared on TV and announced 21 days country lockdown (prior to it he was just asking to beat ‘Thalies’ to boost the morale of corona warriors) that faced large scale violation at many places when lacs of populace started moving back towards their homes. This decision although was justified but also criticized at some level that it was also an abrupt announcement like that of demonetization and GST without threadbare discussion about its proper implementation. |
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