No let-up in cases

taking electronic voting machines to the people.

But the prospect of elections has completely diverted the attention of the ruling Janata Dal (United)-bharatiya Janata Party alliance from managing COVID. There are more meetings to plan for the election than for managing the pandemic. In fact, members of these two political parties have become so engrossed in election preparations that social distancing has gone for a toss. Last month, the State unit of the BJP held a meeting of its district-level functionaries at its Patna headquarters, which was attended by over 400 leaders. After the meeting, over 125 BJP leaders, including State party chief Sanjay Jaiswal, vice presidents Radha Mohan Sharma and Rajesh Verma and general secretaries Nagendra Nath and Devesh Kumar tested positive. Jaiswal’s wife and mother also contracted the virus.

Before this, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s official residence had turned into a hotspot with 60 persons, including staff and family members, testing positive. Among those infected was Nitish Kumar’s niece.

Though the State government has announced an insurance cover of Rs.30 lakh each for those involved in election activity, opposition leaders are sceptical. “If they are so keen on holding the election on time, they should announce insurance coverage for voters also,” said Manoj Jha. According to him, thinking of elections at this time makes politicians look like “vultures”.

JHARKHAND’S WOES

In Jharkhand, though lockdown restrictions are in place according to Government of India guidelines, markets and shops are open in Ranchi, traffic on the roads is chaotic as usual, and offices are functioning to full capacity. On July 19, Jharkhand had 5,399 COVID cases; this rose to 26,300 by August 20. Similarly, from 48 the number of deaths rose to 278 in this period. As many as 16,566 people have recovered so far. The State had 9,456 active cases as on August 20.

But the inadequacy of institutional care remains a cause for concern. With only one government hospital, Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) in Ranchi, catering to COVID patients, the availability of beds is a huge problem. Though district hospitals too have been treating COVID patients, the facilities there are inadequate. Some private hospitals have started reserving beds for COVID patients, but they are too expensive for the common people.

The government has not set up a single new facility for COVID treatment, nor augmented capacity or facilities in its existing hospitals. All it has done is to set up some testing laboratories. “We could have done much better, but we have received no support from the Centre. With our limited resources, we now have eight testing labs while there was none when COVID came,” said Alok Dubey, spokesperson of the Congress, a constituent of the ruling alliance. According to him, the State has asked private hospitals to chip in, while it has focused on taking care of migrant labourers who returned during the lockdown.

Said Dubey: “We have provided employment to lakhs of workers under the MGNREGA. For skilled workers, we are contacting private companies and institutions which are keen to employ these people. For farmers, we have started an innovative programme of sending fresh fruits and vegetables grown in our State to Dubai. The first lot was dispatched some five days ago. We could have done much better if we had received some support from the Centre, but even otherwise we are doing our best to manage the crisis.”

But trying to do the best is not enough, as is evident from the ground reality. A telling commentary on the state of affairs in Jharkhand is the fact that even frontline COVID warriors are falling prey to the disease: hundreds of policemen, doctors and other health-care workers have contracted the virus. For common people, RIMS in Ranchi is the only hospital fully equipped to deal with the infection. But it is a tough task to even reach the hospital in time. With only over 900 beds in RIMS, availability of beds is a problem.

THE number of COVID-19 positive cases has been rising steadily in Karnataka. The State, which reported its first case on March 8, had a cumulative total of 2,40,948 cases as on August 18, 79,782 of them active, and 4,021 deaths. Since early August the number of cases reported daily has been on the increase, with the highest numbers being reported on three days in the second week—7,883 on August 12; 7,908 on August 14; and 8,818 on August 15.

More than 80 per cent of the deceased reported symptoms of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARI) or influenza-like illness (ILI). Karnataka now has the fourth highest number of cases in the country after Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.

With 94,106 cases, 33,081 of them active, Bengaluru Urban continues to have the largest number of positive cases in Karnataka. Bengaluru city has been reporting on an average more than 2,000 new cases every day and has recorded the highest number of deaths (as on August 18) at 1,532. The highest number of cases were reported from the city’s west zone, covering 50 square kilometres and having a population of 18 lakhs. Parts of the zone are densely populated, which has given rise to fears of the spread of the virus.

Contact tracing has become impossible owing to staff shortage. Deputy Chief Minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan, during a conversation with mediapersons, said: “Primary contacts get traced within two hours. Tracing secondary contacts is the challenge.”

Other districts that have reported a significant rise in the number of cases include Ballari (15,180), Mysuru (11,489), Kalaburagi (9,265), Dakshina Kannada (9,296)