Maharashtra in beginning of second COVID wave, step up contact tracing: Centre to Uddhav govt

The Centre warned Maharashtra on Tuesday that the state is witnessing the beginning of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic and asked the state government to scale up the pace of vaccination campaign, especially in districts witnessing a sharp increase in infections.

Issuing a letter to Maharashtra's Chief Secretary Sitaram Kunte, which is based on the assessment of the central team's visit last week, the Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan has urged the state to bring down its positivity rate and step up contact-tracing.

The team noted the lack of Covid-19-appropriate behaviour and tracking and testing of cases as the prime reason behind the infection surge, apart from the apathy of the district administration to implement already prescribed measures for transmission control.

"Maharashtra is in the beginning of a second wave of COVID-19 pandemic. Efforts to track, test, isolate cases and quarantine contacts are limited there with no adherence to COVID-19 appropriate behaviour among people both in rural and urban areas," Bhushan wrote in the letter.

Pointing towards contact tracing, the Health Secretary's letter mentioned that the case-contact ratio is more than 1:20 in the state.

"Though it appears high, a deep dive into the methodology of contact tracing revealed that the main concept of contact tracing was not clearly understood by the field level staff, who were mainly listing the immediate family and neighborhood contacts. The high-risk contacts in workplace settings, social settings and family settings were not investigated," he added.

"There was no effort to map the cases and contacts and notify the containment zone with perimeter control as to contain or suppress transmission," the team's analysis revealed.

He also pointed out that eight of the top 10 districts of India in terms of active Covid-19 infections are in Maharashtra and the only way to curb the spread is to increase the pace of vaccination.

The Health Ministry Central team in its observation had written that night curfew, partial lockdowns and weekend lockdowns have a limited impact on curbing the virus transmission.

According to the Central team, some districts were found contemplating to implement measures such as night curfew, partial lockdowns, weekend lockdowns etc. (Aurangabad, Nashik and Jalgaon).

"These measures may have only very limited impact on containing/suppressing the transmission. Hence, the District Administration should focus on containment strategy as per the guidelines laid out by the Centre," the letter said, expressing its views on covid management.

"Besides, the team also found a lackadaisical approach of the district administrations to manage the situation on the ground. The District Administration is not much worried about the evolving situation. We could sense a feeling that enough has been done already. This complacency may take its toll," it concluded.

While the positivity rate in Maharashtra stands at 13.21 percent, the recovery rate is 92.21 percent. The fatality rate in the state is 2.28 percent.

The Latur district administration has already imposed a night curfew between 8 pm and 5 am to contain the spread of the virus in the district. According to the order released by the officials, all weekly markets will remain shut till March 31. However, emergency services have been exempted.

A complete lockdown has already been announced in the Nagpur city area from March 15 to March 21 in view of the rising infections.

(With agency inputs)