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One day after the West Bengal government came clean on the spread of Covid-19 in the State and fatality rate with updated data, the State has come for a scathing attack from the Union Home Ministry. The State has been faulted for its response to contain the spread of the coronavirus and failure to curb violations to the social distancing norms.
A letter from Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla to West Bengal Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha is based on the feedback of the two inter-ministerial central teams that visited the State towards the end of April. It states: “The response to Covid-19 in West Bengal is characterised with a very low rate of testing in proportion to the population and a very high rate of mortality of 13.2 per cent, by far the highest for any State. This is a reflection of poor surveillance, detection and testing in the State. There is also a need to increase random testing in crowded clusters.”
Poor enforcement of lockdown
The Home Secretary cited violations of the lockdown in Kolkata and Howrah by “specific groups in specific localities”. The letter called for stricter enforcement of the lockdown by enhancing police presence and expressed displeasure over the instances of problems faced due to ostracism of health care professionals and the lack of quarantine facilities.
The Home Ministry has also frowned upon what it calls poor supervision and implementation of crowd control measures by the district authorities, which had resulted in instances of overcrowding in bazaars, free movement of people in large numbers without masks, bathing in rivers, people playing cricket and football, laxity in enforcing lockdown measures in containment zones and plying of rickshaws without any restrictions.
The letter noted that there were gaps in the surveillance and contact tracing of positive cases and that the State has not provided any data regarding the number of households and individuals contacted and surveyed for the signs of Covid symptoms.
More testing centres needed
The State has been told to create more testing centres, particularly in the hill districts on North Bengal, as transporting the samples to Siliguri led to delay in detecting positive cases.
Additionally, it has been directed to establish a strong surveillance and testing regime coupled with confidence-building measures and effective use of the Aarogya Setu app could help in curtailing the spread of the virus.
The State has also been told to ensure that the quality of PPE and N-95 masks conformed to ICMR standards, and that these were made available to doctors and medical staff in non-Covid hospitals.
For the migrant workers, the State has been asked to take steps to mitigate their hardship and more relief camps be opened.
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