Govt handled Covid situation effectively in rural parts: Study

Nagpur: The World Health Organization (WHO) and many global platforms had predicted a disaster in rural India in 2020 when Covid-19 was about to hit our country. The projected figures of patients, and mortality were scary. But, the pandemic was managed very effectively by our policy-makers and doctors on their respective fronts.
These are the findings of a city specific study of Covid-19 across all four waves of the pandemic from Gondia, a tier 3 city in Vidarbha. Veteran general physician Dr Deepak Bahekar from Gondia told about this study, authored by him in the last three years.
“We handled more than 850 patients in our in-patient department and over 3,000 in OPDs during the Covid waves. The first wave was severe due to our ignorance, and the second became disastrous due to Delta mutation coupled with our “overconfident” response to it,” said Dr Bahekar, who will take over as president of the Association of Physicians of India Vidarbha Chapter this Sunday.
“We conducted this study in Gondia, specifically to get the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis of the pandemic situation. Timely lockdown, building of medical infrastructure, quick invention of effective vaccines are the strong points,” he said.
Explaining the dangers, he said, poor response to third dose coverage by people is a big threat. “Not even 30% of the population is vaccinated by the third dose though it was offered free for 75 days,” he lamented.
General physicians in Vidarbha will host an academic event on Sunday in which they will discuss post-pandemic situation and challenges. Nagpur collector Dr Vipin Itankar will be the chief guest.