Now that numbers of both new coronavirus infections as well as deaths have been on a steep rise for a while, crossing the 100,000 mark, it seems an urgent rethink of the official policy is in order. There\u2019s little chance of the prime minister coming round to accepting the necessity of another lockdown, and much time and money has already been invested in the reopening, prime focus must now shift to making sure that the healthcare system can withstand the steepening of the curve, so to speak. So far the government has been pretty confident that the situation will not spiral out of control. But since the virus is clearly spreading very fast, and our healthcare facilities were very limited to begin with, it can\u2019t be too long before hospitals become overwhelmed and run out of space as well as necessary equipment.
\nAlready new patients are being advised to isolate themselves in their homes, as opposed to shifting them to quarantine centres, precisely because there is no more space. For the government to appear in-control is understandable because the last thing anybody needs at this moment is panic spreading among the people. But appearing strong is one thing, and not being able to handle a bad situation is quite another. The government should spend this time in upgrading the medical infrastructure. It is a big ask, no doubt, but it\u2019s not as if other countries have not done it. The best example comes from our neighbour China. Beijing could have also buried its head in the sand and decided to go about business as usual, but it realised the importance of not just a strict lockdown but also of providing timely medical care to all patients to keep the disease from spreading.
\nThe government needs to realise that it can\u2019t have the cake and eat it too. If it is going to gamble on opening up and keeping things in check, then it must have suitable contingency plans in place. It is, after all, the government\u2019s responsibility to prepare for the worst case scenario before embarking upon any plan. And should things go wrong with this particular plan, of opening up the country despite the sharply rising number of cases, then there will be a lot of new patients to deal with. Therefore it is necessary to divert necessary funds towards the medical sector in the upcoming budget. This problem is clearly not going to go away anytime soon and countries all over the world are making such arrangements. We must also act now before it is too late. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Now that numbers of both new coronavirus infections as well as deaths have been on a steep rise for a while, crossing the 100,000 mark, it seems an urgent rethink of the official policy is in order. There\u2019s little chance of the prime minister coming round to accepting the necessity of another lockdown, and much […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-article"],"yoast_head":"\n