COVID Politics and Elections
The talk of the town of a possible CORONA strike as a second wave is gathering momentum, since the detection of an unexpected and a large number of positive cases from a single location viz, Kandakadu Drug Rehabilitation centre, last week.
Making a bad situation worst is the alarming fact that many officials attached to the center have been now confirmed as infected, after returning home from duty. Some of the few concerned areas identified earlier, where the said officials reside and moved around , have now turned into frightening numbers with many more such areas being added on a daily basis to include new contact persons and places.
It appears that this sudden surge of patients was least expected as the usual blame game is on with many a finger pointing towards both the Covid task force and ministry of health. Furthermore, the public health inspectors are complaining that the new regulations, discussed and agreed upon under the quarantine act are yet to be gazetted by the health ministry, making their untiring efforts not effective and efficient, when such regulations are contravened by so many at will.be that as it may, it is now quite evident that unlike the previous Covid cluster at the Navy complex at Welisara, the present one has a wider range of areas for contact tracing and testing. During the Navy episode the country was mostly under a lockdown situation with curfew imposed on a staggered basis and hardly any public transport.as such the movement of Navy personnel who were on leave was limited and so was their contacts, thus tracing them was not difficult.
On the contrary, it is not so today, and contact tracing and PCR testing is a daunting task, to say the least. Having said that it also must be mentioned here that the initial fear that was naturally instilled in all of us due to Covid , has reduced to a great extent. The worst-case scenario is the unsuspecting voters, notwithstanding the possible risk, flocking in their numbers to see the new and old leaders on stage as if voting without physically seeing them is not done ! Anyone
who has watched TV during last few days would have noticed the blatant violation of laid down guide lines and regulations for such meetings. One-meter distancing reduced to one centimeter and most face masks being used as chin and throat protectors !
It is earnestly hoped that saner council would prevail among all political party leaders to cancel forthwith all big or small gatherings which are nothing but mudslinging campaigns with high pitched political rhetoric and promises that are only meant to be broken ! God only knows why people are attracted and waste their valuable time attending such meetings amidst a grave health risk.taking into consideration the fact that the first stage of postal voting already being over and only about little over two weeks left before 5th of August ,one wonders the need to continue with electioneering with the COVID pandemic looming over us making the voters as well as the politicians quite vulnerable.