Total curfew flopped, keeping fate on night curfew
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: August 09, 2021 -

LIKE it or not, the government's decision to lift day curfew after nearly 20 days 2nd impose night curfew for the next 15 days along with adopting the micro containment model amid the continuous detection of Covid-19 positive cases reflects failure of the authorities to effectively curb the pandemic.

Though lifting of the day curfew is understandable in view of the hardships faced by the commoners, the daily wagers in particular, the government's emphasis on persisting with the policy of prohibiting public movement after dusk is unlikely to bring any significant change if it could not diligently enforce the micro containment protocols revolving around vigorous contact tracing and testing.

As nightlife is almost non-existent in Manipur, the focus must remain on tracking, testing and isolating cases.

Moreover, considering the fact that the state has been in the vice-like grip of the second wave of the pandemic, curfew or lockdown seems to be having very limited impact on containing 6r suppressing the transmission.

Holding the public accountable for the surge in daily cases ever since the pandemic, the second wave in particular, hit the state; the government resorted to imposition of total curfew in the worst affected districts.

As the days under curfew, which is considered most rigorous and effective measure as of now to break the chain of transmission, have brought no respite from the second wave of the pandemic it could be safely stated that lifting of the prohibitory orders citing economic hardships of the people has only laid bare the fact that the government authorities have not been efficient enough in implementing follow-up measures such as maximising contact tracing and increasing the number of tests.

Besides curfew, there had been various measures adopted in the state to curb the contagion including random and mass testing drives but without much success, thereby implying that the steps taken up to tame the virus were not up to the mark.

Thus, amid the state continuing to record daily test positivity rate of over 10 per cent since the onset of second wave of the pandemic in early April, the latest move of the government to do away with the day time curfew is akin to ringing out the message that the people cannot rely on the government to protect them from the infectious disease.

While outbreak of the novel coronavirus has been wreaking havoc to life and livelihood across the world, in Manipur's context all the efforts made so far to curb the second wave have failed miserably as is evident from the state registering 74,188 positive cases and 1266 fatalities apart from the positivity rate remaining high in the last three months ranging from over 10 per cent to 18 per cent.

Under such a dire situation one could only wish that the marginal dip in the infection rate this month compared to the last few months is a sign of dissipation of the virus.

Moreover, the suffering masses would now be hoping that the government's assumption that imposition of night curfew might have the magical effect and lead to improvement in the pandemic situation turns out to be true.

However, one must remember that the same measure has been in force even before the onset of the second wave but it has not been helpful to contain the contagion.