Being safe: More power to preparenedness

The number of beds at these centres has also increased as well as oxygen facilities

Even as the city recorded no Covid deaths recently, setting a pleasant record for the first in the past 19 months, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is still keeping its guard up. The civic authorities are prepping for the third wave and one of the mandates it has given is to keep all jumbo Covid centres active for another three months. The number of beds at these centres has also increased as well as oxygen facilities.

Officials have been quoted in this paper’s report saying that cases are within limit. Yet warning bells are pealing about the festive season that is upon us. There is a gradual unlocking, and meeting and mingling has started with people readying for Diwali.

So, it is just as well that jumbo centres are up and ready. We have to learn from our mistakes or just some hasty decisions. We had seen some centres disbanded before the second wave rose like a tsunami. Then, everybody will remember the nightmare—no hospital beds, scrambling for oxygen, shortage of medicines and the horrific scenario. Officials were scrambling to set up certain centres.

So, as we walk a tightrope between lives and livelihoods, we have to keep ourselves protected through following the standard operating procedures (SOP) which all know by now. We know, too, that fatigue falter and festival factors are in, so there are slippages and some complacency.

Here, then, it is important that jumbo centres are not disbanded but are part of the arsenal, in case we see yet another mammoth wave. Countries that have opened up, so to speak, are seeing a surge; the UK being one example. We certainly cannot disband as yet. Re-setting infrastructure is difficult, time consuming, expensive and painful. More power to preparedness, we say.

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