SRINAGAR: While expressing serious concern over the alarming rise in COVID19 cases in Jammu and Kashmir in recent days, CPI (M) leader Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami Sunday appealed the people to follow the guidelines to prevent the deadly pandemic in letter and spirit.
“In the past two weeks, more than 2400 new COVID-19 cases have been recorded in J&K which must be a cause of concern for all of us. The COVID-19 positive cases are steadily rising in the region and even deaths due to COVID-19 are on the rise,” he said and added “The region has quite inadequate woeful health facilities. The growth of infections is outpacing growth in testing.”
Urging authorities to ramp up testing to trace the infections he said “If the infection rate continues to grow, things are going to get pretty grim in a few weeks. Authorities also need to significantly ramp up the number of tests done across the region to trace COVID-19 infection cases and should be conducted more rigorously if the pandemic is to be contained in time.”
Relating the testing capacity with chances of winning the battle, Tarigami said “there is a need to do effective contact tracing and test them so that those people, in turn, do not infect others,” he said adding “the more number of people are screened there are greater chances of winning this fight against COVID-19. Priority must be given to admitted patients, new patients being brought in, and the front-line workers.”
Requesting people to adhere to the norms, he said “people should practice social distancing norms and other health advisories which are important elements in this fight. We should not become complacent and wear face masks and follow other norms as prescribed by the experts at any cost.”
Urging to make use of masks mandatory, he said “use of masks by the general public will cut the transmission to a large extent. The administration must ensure the availability of masks in the market with price check so that all can afford wearing masks.”
“The lockdown period should have been used by the government to increase the health care infrastructure which was not done to the extent it is required. Testing is still limited to 4-5 thousand per day only. No ventilators are still very negligible. The government should ensure the availability of more ventilators to save patients who are critical due to COVID-19. Hospitals and beds dedicated for COVID cases will fall short if the surge of cases remains unchecked,” he added.
Appreciating the role of frontline workers, he said “all frontline workers including doctors/paramedics /ASHAs/police personnel’s /safai karamcharis/PHE and PDD employees working tirelessly round the clock in these tough circumstances should be considered for additional incentives.”
The CPI(M) leader also urged the government to provide Rs 7,500 per month for three months to all the families outside the income tax-paying bracket and those who lost livelihood in lockdown including the people associated with business, tourism, transport, handicrafts sectors, and casual labourers.
