Take Tips From Other States On How To Tackle Crisis: NC Tells J-K Govt On Rising Covid Cases

As the Covid-19 cases rose in Jammu and Kashmir, the National Conference on Saturday asked the Jammu and Kashmir government to look towards other states to learn how to tackle the crisis.

“We see how in a well-organized manner various state governments across the country had made ample arrangements in form of creating makeshift hospitals, extra testing facilities to cope with the viral spread. Unfortunately, the big shots in the administration in J&K have been living in denial up until now,” National Conference  MPs Muhammad Akbar Lone and Hasnain Masoodi said.

They said the governor’s administration has also failed to scale up the existing infrastructure in hospitals by augmenting existing bed strength and other life-saving equipment by learning from the previous experience.

The government on Saturday informed that 501 new positive cases of Covid-19, highest this year, 108 from Jammu and 393 from Kashmir, have been reported, taking the number of positive cases in J&K to 13,2439. Also, two Covid-19 deaths have been reported from Jammu.

The MPs said the administration is waiting for the situation to snowball into a grave crisis. “The administration has turned its back on the exigencies that have propped up in wake of the increased number of infections in the past few weeks. The administration has thrown caution to the winds and is completely clueless on the issues. Had the ruling regime in J&K come up with a well-thought-out strategy to cope with the prevailing crises, the situation would not have become as dire as it is turning with each passing day,” they said.

“The administration has been selling previous lockdowns as a success. The idea behind the lockdown was to flatten the curve of Covid-19 infection, and the administration has failed to achieve that end. It is unfortunate to see J&K administration missing from action on this issue which is steadily moving towards yet another peak,” they said. “It is needless to say that the present regime in J&K has failed to follow the ‘trace, test and treat’ norm of the World Health Organization. It seems that the administration has given in; it is only busy in photo-ops and shoddy PR. The response of the J&K administration to the Covid-19 crises presents a grimy tale of shortfalls and mistakes. The ‘whataboutery’ of the civil administration is only adding to the miseries of people,” they said.