Cov­er­ing up their in­ef­fi­cien­cies and bad man­age­ment, now gov­ern­ments are re­sort­ing to forc­ing peo­ple into un­der­go­ing mass manda­tory test­ing, with­out re­al­is­ing that this by it­self will be a move that will lead to more in­fec­tions.  The Pun­jab gov­ern­ment of Cap­tain Amarinder Singh has or­dered this knee-jerk move to counter the ris­ing in­fec­tions in the state. One such test­ing is likely to hap­pen in the next hours at Skynet En­clave in Mo­hali. WSN ap­peals to the state ma­chin­ery not to re­sort to po­lice meth­ods to con­trol the virus, rather re­vamp the health sys­tem and fa­cil­i­ties for one and all. 

THE PUN­JAB GOV­ERN­MEN­T’S ILL-IN­FORMED MOVE move to go for mass test­ing in mi­cro-con­tain­ment zones could well turn out to be a su­per spreader event since peo­ple are be­ing asked to come to a spot turn by turn for such test­ing, lit­tle re­al­is­ing that the lat­est sci­en­tific re­search has proved how the virus is highly air­borne and con­ta­gious.

“We now know that the virus re­mains in the air for hours. The very fact that the front­line work­ers are be­ing ex­posed un­nec­es­sar­ily to hun­dreds of healthy cit­i­zens is putting the cit­i­zens’ life at stake. Be­sides, res­i­dents who have not met each other for months now are be­ing asked to share the same bios­phere and en­vi­ron­ment, thus mak­ing them vul­ner­a­ble to the virus,” Dr Pyare Lal Garg, a well-known health ac­tivist.

Res­i­dents in hous­ing so­ci­eties of Mo­hali, where the Health De­part­ment of­fi­cials and work­ers landed up on Mon­day morn­ing for started manda­tory test­ing, were highly en­raged at such cal­lous be­hav­iour of lo­cal health au­thor­i­ties and wanted to know if the gov­ern­ment ac­tively wants peo­ple to be­come sick.

this is a wastage of scarce hu­man re­sources as well as med­ical fa­cil­i­ties. In any case, if the health of­fi­cials are opt­ing for any kind of in­stant test­ing, then this is fur­ther prob­lem­atic be­cause sci­ence has proven this kind of test­ing to have a huge er­ror rate and 60 per cent of re­sults could be false neg­a­tive. This will pre­sent a com­pletely dis­torted pic­ture of virus stats,”

Dr. Pyare Lal Garg, for­mer Dean, Fac­ulty of Med­ical Sci­ences, Pan­jab Uni­ver­sity, Chandi­garh

“A gov­ern­ment that can­not as­sure peo­ple of hos­pi­tal beds and oxy­gen is now do­ing some­thing so fool­ish as to bring us in con­tact with neigh­bours and res­i­dents who we had not met in more than a year. Are we mad or has the gov­ern­ment com­pletely taken leave of its senses?” asked an an­gry res­i­dent of Skynet En­clave in Zi­rakpur.

Health De­part­ment of­fi­cials asked hun­dreds, and in some cases, thou­sands of res­i­dents to reach a sin­gle spot in the name of test­ing, “turn by turn”, com­pletely dis­re­gard­ing the fact that since the virus is air­borne, they will be ex­pos­ing the en­tire pop­u­la­tion to the deadly virus.

Dis­re­gard­ing the sci­ence be­hind the need and util­ity of mass test­ing when com­mu­nity spread is well known, the gov­ern­men­t’s move will make res­i­dents highly vul­ner­a­ble to the virus. Top pub­li­ca­tions like the Lancet have pub­lished reams of med­ical lit­er­a­ture to un­der­line how the virus stays in the air for hours.

Many res­i­dents in such mi­cro-con­tain­ment zones said they were asked to reach a sin­gle spot in turns for this manda­tory test­ing.

Virus is air­borne, but health of­fi­cials bring peo­ple to same spot, in the same bios­phere.

“A move like Manda­tory Sam­pling of all in the Mi­cro-con­tain­ment zone to limit the spread of the con­ta­gion is ac­tu­ally a move to spread the virus among the pop­u­lace. I am shocked that any­one with a sane mind can think of such a fool­ish strat­egy that will prove surely coun­ter­pro­duc­tive,” said Dr Garg, for­mer Reg­is­trar of Baba Farid Uni­ver­sity of Health Sci­ences, Pun­jab’s only health uni­ver­sity.

Health De­part­ment of­fi­cials ex­pressed their help­less­ness while con­ced­ing that the move was not only worth­less from a sci­en­tific point of view but could also be a dis­as­ter as it can prove to a Su­per Spreader event. An of­fi­cial said lo­cal coun­cil­lors and small-time politi­cians were try­ing to show their ‘kar­guzari’ by forc­ing the health of­fi­cials to send such teams. “Every­one is try­ing to play doc­tor, and the most fool­ish are in po­si­tions of power,” said an en­raged health of­fi­cial who was part of a team in a hous­ing so­ci­ety in Zi­rakpur.

“Every­one is try­ing to play doc­tor, and the most fool­ish are in po­si­tions of power,” said an en­raged health of­fi­cial who was part of a team in a hous­ing so­ci­ety in Zi­rakpur.

In Skynet En­clave, health of­fi­cials sta­tioned them­selves in a small of­fice of the so­ci­ety and sum­moned res­i­dents to “come in turns for sam­pling,” even know­ing fully well that the air­borne virus will lead to dan­ger­ous con­se­quences.

Dr Garg said it falls upon the civil so­ci­ety and aware res­i­dents to safe­guard their health and re­sist any fool­ish mea­sures by un­think­ing of­fi­cials since politi­cians seem lit­tle both­ered and even min­is­ters, in­clud­ing the min­is­ter for health, have been pub­licly flout­ing Covid guide­lines.

“Be­sides, this is wastage of scarce hu­man re­sources as well as med­ical fa­cil­i­ties. In any case, if the health of­fi­cials are opt­ing for any kind of in­stant test­ing, then this is fur­ther prob­lem­atic be­cause sci­ence has proven this kind of test­ing to have a huge er­ror rate and 60 per cent of re­sults could be false neg­a­tive. This will pre­sent a com­pletely dis­torted pic­ture of virus stats,” said Dr Garg, also for­mer Dean, Fac­ulty of Med­ical Sci­ences, Pan­jab Uni­ver­sity, Chandi­garh.

A health de­part­ment of­fi­cial said he strongly op­posed such moves and ex­empted him­self from part of such a fool­ish ex­er­cise. He said sim­i­lar moves in the first wave of the virus had proved counter-pro­duc­tive.