As COVID-19 cases witnessed a spurt in some parts of the world, the Union Health Ministry on Saturday made it mandatory for international travellers entering the country from China, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, and South Korea to carry negative RT-PCR test reports. It also mandated the filling of Air Suvidha forms for declaring COVID-19 status for passengers from the above-mentioned countries, along with quarantine for those who were symptomatic or tested positive on arrival. Saturday morning also saw the start of random testing of 2% of passengers on every international flight.
The spurt in coronavirus cases reported out of China has triggered global alarm. As some mathematical modelling projections calculate a million COVID-19 cases in the coming days in China, the prevailing expert opinion is that the lifting of stringent curbs and containment measures under China’s zero-COVID strategy after almost three years has now exposed large populations of people who lack ‘natural immunity’. Cases have also seen a surge in the United States and France.
Saturday’s announcements by the Health Ministry came after it issued a directive to States this week to send positive samples to the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) to check for new, concerning strains and called a review of the coronavirus situation in the country. While so far, India’s case numbers suggest that there’s not a big cause for worry, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya has noted the importance of being prepared and remaining alert against new and emerging strains of COVID-19, especially in view of the upcoming festive season. While India has a good vaccine coverage and there are currently only around 3,400 active cases in the country with just one district having a test positivity rate of over 10%, the last two years have shown that noticeable spikes are officially confirmed many weeks later.
Besides the increased vigil on international travel, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan also wrote to the States and the Union Territories to conduct mock drills at all health facilities across the country on December 27 to ensure operational readiness to tackle COVID-19. States and UTs were asked to reinvigorate oxygen control rooms and monitor demand and consumption.
While medical experts pointed out that almost all the sub-variants of Omicron found across the world were already circulating in India as well and no alarming situation had emerged, the need for alertness, sequencing of existing variants, and surveillance was advised. Additionally, the BF.7 variant of COVID-19, believed to be driving the recent surge in China, was first identified in India as far back as July.
However, as this editorial in The Hindu points out, given that much of the world has moved to normalcy in terms of travel, the prevailing concern is that this surge in some countries is likely to reverberate globally with many more infections, even in India. While India’s vaccine coverage has exceeded 219.33 crore, it needs to keep a check on whether the administered vaccines continue to be efficacious.
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He was the Governor General of independent India for a brief period. The lawyer-turned-nationalist was jailed in 1921, with the movement for ‘non-co-operation’ in full swing. Identify the person.
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- Jawaharlal Nehru
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