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It is understandable that people who have been either under total or near Lockdown feel caged and are waiting for life to get back to normal. People in India and many parts of the world, were quarantined or marooned during much of 2020. The second wave has led to re-lockdown in many states. Markets, shops and commercial activities came to standstill across India while lakhs who became infected with the coronavirus, unable to explain the source of infection and not having any travel history. Nagaland went under the second total Lockdown from June 4 till June 11 but was extended to June 18. Coronavirus cases during May till early part of June continued to break records by crossing the 300-mark in a single day. There have also been high recoveries at around nearly 75%. However, number of deaths due to Covid during May were alarming. At one point in May 25 there were 18 deaths. For a small state like Nagaland, such a figure is high. The number of new cases has sharply declined to double digit and death rate to single digit but official sources are apprehensive about the potential threat of the virus reaching the rural areas. Lockdown in Nagaland is being relaxed to a large extent though educational institutions are still closed and office attendance eased. In a way, there is an attempt to ‘normalise’ life as much as possible in order to restart the economy. Many people live mostly in rural areas and most of them are farmers or engaged in small time business. Some activities such as farming, construction, restaurants including roadside businesses have been relaxed but with strict adherence to covid protocols. The state is likely to relax the lockdown in view of decline in number of new cases and deaths. However, it would be more appropriate to focus on stopping the virus than on relaxing the lockdown. This view may not be shared by most people but it is based on the experiences in other countries. In England, the lifting of restrictions has been described as a “dangerous moment” by international medical experts such Professor Jonathan Van Tam and England’s deputy chief medical officer. According to the view, relaxing lockdown should not be as important as saving lives even under extended Lockdown. The health experts say that relaxing lockdown means people will come into contact with more people and that increases the opportunity for the virus to spread. That was how the second wave spread rapidly and the Delta virus made things worse with spikes in new cases and more deaths across many countries, especially India. The experts maintain that the focus should be on getting people vaccinated and preventing another wave of infections. With health infrastructure in over 80% of the state, especially in rural areas, being without adequate manpower and also medical facilities, there is need to seriously consider whether easing curbs of Lockdown should be the primary focus of the government. The wrong handling of Covid-19 pandemic in India is well known and accepted. Waiting until cases fall further would make the virus easier to control and give more time to react if there is a ‘third wave’. However, that requires keeping a painful lockdown for longer and this requires political will based on sound medical advice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Caution on unlock<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[685],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209551\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}