Some Local Lessons

Context: Checking the rise of COVID-19 cases requires some local lessons of testing and tracing that have been critical in containing the pandemic.

Lessons from Kerala:

• Achievements

• Aggressive Contact Tracing in the early stages of the pandemic.

• Failures: Has not completely managed the infection – Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam districts are feared of community spread.

• • • • Unwillingness to involve private sector sufficiently in the management of pandemic.
      • Failure to ramp up testing capacity.

• • • • Till recently, Ernakulam had a single facility for the gold standard RT-PCR tests, and there was a significant backlog in the number of samples awaiting testing.

• Refused to test mild and asymptomatic contacts of patients which eventually turned into community spread.

Lessons from Dharavi (Mumbai):

• Achievements: With the rising cases at the beginning, the likelihood of exponential spread was checked through:

• Volunteered door to door testing: Using the manpower of local contractors, other areas like Dombivili are also seeking to replicate Dharavi pattern. 

Lessons from Delhi: 

• Achievements: Appeared to be headed for serious trouble a month ago but as of recent days has seen a dip in the number of Covid cases.

• Doing more Rapid Antigen Tests: rather than relying on RT-PCR tests which often fail to pick up cases.

• More focused effort on expanding capacity: increased the number of Covid-care beds by 3 times in a month.

Conclusion: It is clear that testing and tracing are critical in containing the pandemic.