IN a bid to deal with the fatalities from the second wave of Covid-19 in bordering districts of Rajshahi and Khulna divisions, the Epidemiology and Public Health Committee of DGHS has recommended strict and immediate “lockdown” in the districts where the Delta variant of coronavirus has started spreading in the communities. But the government has failed again to act on time and delayed implementation of the recommendation.
The decision of lockdown was taken only recently after the bordering districts have turned into coronavirus hotpots. The district administration of Khulna, however has decided to enforce a seven-day strict “lockdown” from Tuesday as infection and death rates are surging at an alarmingly there. The sudden surge in corona cases in Khulna has left many patients gasping for breath due to an apparent shortage of medical oxygen in some hospitals. At the Khulna Covid-19 Dedicated Hospital, for instance, the number of patients is rising day by day. The hospital also has shortage of beds. The hospital is forced to turn back many patients due to a lack of oxygen and vacant ICU beds. The condition of hospitals in Rajshahi is also the same. Patients are desperately moving from one hospital to another in both the divisions. The worst hit are the elderly patients.
On more than one occasion before, health experts blamed the government for not taking strict measures like closing airports and ensuring health rules on time to tackle infection rates. They fear that the corona infection situation in Dhaka may deteriorate like in Rajshahi and Khulna in the coming weeks if immediate measures are not taken to stop rising infections in bordering districts from spreading. They warned that the situation has turned so bad that one more slack measure to curb the virus can be disastrous. With 82 deaths seconded on Sunday, the death toll from the pandemic stood at 13,548 while the infection totalled 8,51,668 with 3,641 new cases.
We believe individual, family and institutional initiatives should be put in place to make everyone more responsible about wearing masks, regular hand washing, maintaining physical distance, and taking other hygiene measures to prevent further spread of the infection. At the same time, we want the government’s measures not to be confined to papers only, rather those should actually mean action.
