Misplaced optimism as COVID numbers go down
The HinduAmong the many things that stand out in the national strategy to deal with the second wave of COVID-19 is the swift shift to exhibiting an air of optimism in the government’s recent media briefings. Phrases like “steady decline in daily cases”, “progressive decrease in districts reporting high cases”, “continuous decrease in active cases”, “recoveries exceeding the daily cases reported”, “consistent increase in recovery rate”, “continuous increase in testing”, “steady decline in case positivity” and “over 20 crore vaccine doses administered” are designed to make headline news. India remains by a long stretch the country contributing the largest numbers to global COVID cases and deaths, accounting for 41 per cent and 35 per cent of the respective world totals in the seven-day period ending on May 27. On May 20, Health Ministry officials declared that testing would be stepped up massively with more Rapid Antigen Tests for early detection and that RTPCR tests had been “rationalised” in the second wave. The government said on May 27 that 15.6 crore people had received at least one vaccine dose; this number constitutes less than18 per cent of the adult Indian population.