JOIN USCentre blames 'fear of isolation' among people for drop in Maharashtra's Covid-19 testing numbers
The fear of living in isolation and the work getting affected rather than the fear of the disease are the factors that led to a drop in Covid-19 testing in Maharashtra, according to a Union Health Ministry report on the state.
In their report, the health officials who visited Maharashtra on March 1 and 2, said that even though the coronavirus is spreading to hitherto unaffected areas and most cases are asymptomatic, the people are not forthcoming in getting the tests done.
The marriage season has exacerbated the pandemic fatigue because even though the masks are there, barely anyone wears them properly and social distancing norms are completely out.
The central team comprising a Joint Secretary in the Union Health Ministry and two technical experts didn’t rule out the possibility of a virus mutation in the Pune and Amravati regions and noted that efforts to identify such genetic changes in the virus were to be enhanced.
In the Nagpur zone, sero-surveillance showed high positivity in the population (50% on average) that may be leading to herd immunity. As a result, the virus may be spreading to the adjacent Amravati region and even towards rural areas where people so far believed that Covid-19 is a disease only of urban areas and were, therefore, not following the Covid-19 appropriate behaviour.
Read: Centre sends health teams to Maharashtra, Punjab after spike in daily Covid-19 cases
Pune, one of the hotspots, has requested for support in increasing testing infrastructure (since NIV is hardly testing now) and strengthening a conglomerate of 10 institutions for early detection of mutant strains.
Based on the feedback it received, the Central team reported that in the Nagpur region senior doctors and specialists did not actually attend Covid-19 patients, leaving its management to juniors. This affected nuanced critical care such as oxygen therapy and ventilator management. "The sense is that the current wave is less virulent," they wrote in the report.
A section of private doctors, BAMS and unqualified quacks which are the first point of contact may not be advising the infected population as per the protocol. "They have to be reached out to, retrained and reoriented regarding protocols," they added.
“While the exact causes of the surge are not known - since the behavioural laxity is not specific to Maharashtra - the possible factors are covid inappropriate behaviour due to the lack of fear of disease, pandemic fatigue; miss outs and super spreaders; and enhanced aggregations due to recent gram panchayat elections, marriage season, the opening of schools and crowded public transport,” the officials reported.