Telangana High Court on Tuesday issued fresh directions to the State government in a batch of PIL pleas related to COVID-19, giving it two weeks’ time to implement them and the earlier ones.
After listening to an explanation by Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar on government’s strategy to tackle the pandemic, the HC instructed him to appear for hearing on August 13 with the status of compliance of the court’s orders. Along with the CS, a battery of top officials attended the hearing on Tuesday through video conferencing following instructions passed by a bench of Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice B. Vijaysen Reddy on July 20.
Having raised several queries over non-implementation of the bench’s earlier instructions on adherence to ICMR’s guidelines, enhancing sample tests and containment zone policy, the bench directed the CS to ensure medical bulletins were issued in Telugu. “For 80% of the State population, English is still a foreign language. It would be easier for them to understand medical bulletin if it is in Telugu,” the bench said.
Referring to ICMR’S guidelines on testing secondary contacts of COVID patients, the bench said the government cannot afford to deviate from them. The bench said the government’s claim that minors and senior citizens were more vulnerable to COVID creates an impression that persons in the age group of 21-50 years were relatively less susceptible to the virus. This would embolden persons of that age group to move around freely. But the data in medical bulletin suggests that persons in the age group of 21-50 years were falling prey to the pandemic.
The CS, explaining that probable rate of incidence of coronavirus among minors and senior citizens was higher, agreed to rectify the anomaly in the medical bulletins.