The Telangana government has put on hold the crucial weapon for fighting Covid-19 pandemic i.e. contact tracing merely on account of shortage of municipal staff, the petitioners’ counsel said. He urged the High Court to direct the government to undertake comprehensive contact tracing of all positive cases by engaging volunteers and ward councillors/corporators.
Advocate K Pavan Kumar, appearing for petitioner advocate Surya Balu Mahendra and academician M Bala Krishna in a PIL filed on Covid-19 issue, has filed an additional affidavit before the High Court by submitting that it is crucial to involve corporators/ward councillors since they were the ones who have greater accessibility and could keep track of patients within their respective wards.
The advocate has also filed another PIL for having in place a Live Dashboard on the availability of hospital beds/ventilators in the designated Covid-19 government and private hospitals in GHMC area. The ICMR has also emphasised the importance of contact tracing.
In Telangana, over 80 per cent of the confirmed cases are from Greater Hyderabad. The State has reported a daily positive rate ranging between 20 and 40 per cent in the last two weeks. Hyderabad still has the lowest testing rate among big Indian cities such as Delhi and Mumbai, he said and urged the court to direct the State to undertake comprehensive testing i.e. testing of asymptomatic primary contacts and patients with ILI symptoms as per the guidelines of ICMR. The matter will come up for hearing on July 20.