Covid in India: Missing facts, misdirected discourse

‘The current stentorian discourse sans facts, which shifts the blame on to the government for the supply chain failures of hospitals, misses a more critical fact. Anticipating a contingency like this, the Modi government had ordered 162 PSA plants at a cost of over Rs 200 crore in October last for government hospitals all over India. This could have produced 80,500 litres of medical oxygen per minute. This translates approximately to one ton of liquid oxygen per day per plant. 

‘But out of plants ordered for 162 hospitals, only 33 got installed. Why? Even state government hospitals thwarted the Centre’s plan for on-the-spot oxygen production facilities. The Print says, orders were placed in December but when vendors reached the hospitals for installation, many “faced resistance” from them, pretending “no space” — the real reason being vested interest to procure oxygen rather than generating the entire requirement onsite. This showed how advance planning for on-the-spot oxygen supply by the Centre was thwarted by even the state-run hospitals. In the contemporary shouting and counter shouting in the media and social media, has anyone heard about this farsighted move of the government, beyond the feeble voice of The Print?’

Read here (New Indian Express, Apr 27, 2021) 

From control rooms to testing, several strategies helped Uttar Pradesh contain pandemic

‘Several factors distinguish the handling of the pandemic in the state but I aim to discuss a few in this article. Of the many innovative steps taken there are three clear winners. 

‘First is the setting up of Team 11 — a group of 11 senior government officials tasked with managing different aspects like surveillance and contact tracing, testing and treatment, sanitisation, containment, enforcement, doorstep delivery, issues of migrants, communication strategy, etc — in March itself...

‘The second winner is the Integrated Covid Command and Control Centre (ICCC) set up in every district. This is the nerve centre of pandemic management in the district, sending testing teams to different areas as per plan, ensuring surveillance and contact tracing, sending positive patients to different Covid hospitals or placing them under home isolation...

‘The third winner is the integrated data management portal (upcovid19tracks.in). It provides us with the ability to crunch and analyse data on a daily basis... 

‘Let me also discuss two strategic interventions, out of many, which we have taken. 

‘The first is the widespread use of the drug, ivermectin, not just for treatment of cases but also as a prophylactic. The state government provides free medicines to all patients in home isolation or in government COVID-19 facilities, which have more than 1.5 lakh beds. We have used the combination of ivermectin and doxycyclin to successfully treat over three lakh home-isolated patients with mild symptoms so far. This combination has also been used by the hospitals across the state for admitted COVID-19 patients. But what is more interesting is the state’s successful use of ivermectin as a prophylactic.

‘The second strategic intervention is the targeted testing of selected groups. We started doing this in June with residents of urban slums, workers at nursing homes, pharmacy shops, bus and auto drivers, shopkeepers, security guards in malls, hospitals, etc.’  

Read here (Indian Express, Dec 17, 2021)