Mumbai: Amidst divided opinion amongst bureaucrats, politicians and governments over continuation of the nationwide COVID-19 Lockdown announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 24, noted lawyer and legal expert Advocate Ashish Giri has requested the Center as well as the State Government for extending the lockdown period considering the rising number of Coronavirus, COVID-19 cases not just in Maharashtra and rest of the country.
Advocate Ashish Giri has addressed the letter dated April 7 to the Prime Minister of India, Union Ministry of Health, Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Uddhav Thackeray has urged them to consider extending the lockdown period till May 15, 2020.
It will be a tricky decision to make for the Center given the sharp divisions amongst the bureaucracy, politicians and state governments.
While the section of the bureaucracy is clearly in favor of extending the lockdown period to what they call the 49 day period and let the country come clean on the containment of COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar has in a Facebook live chat and a statement later opined that the lockdown could be lifted in a staggered manner.
Advocate Giri in his letter pointed out that Chief Minister’s from Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and New Delhi – K Chandrashekhar Rao, Yogi Adityanath, Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Arvind Kejriwal urged the Center to extend the lockdown period beyond April 14.
He has further argued that since March 24, the government machinery has worked 24/7 to enforce the lockdown, any move to unlock the lockdown or partially unlock it will pose seriously problem of imposing the lockdown after some days of relaxation. Advocate Giri argues that it will be difficult for the authorities to re-control the crowds and controlling the huge possibility of people travelling from within the state and to other states as well.
Advocate Ashish Giri has expressed apprehensions over the move by the Ministry of Railways to start operating the Railways which will make it difficult for the authorities to control the spread of Novel Corona virus. He adds that for a country like India which does not have a well-equipped medical system will have to face with huge number of casualties. Even the people themselves will not be in the mood to undergo a second lockdown after some days of relaxation and the entire state machinery will have to double their efforts in re-controlling the situation.
Justifying his demand, Advocate Ashish Giri has referred to the Bharatiya Janata Party leader Dr Kirit Somaiya’s letter addressed to Governor of Maharashtra Bhagat Singh Koshyari in which the BJP leader has argued that the police have still not been able to trace some people who had attended the religious ceremony of the Tablighi Jamaat in New Delhi.
Besides this fresh positive cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Dharavi and Worli Koliwada which are densely populated. To make matters worse the weather in the country is in a transition phase as the summer season approaches and the said transition phase is medically considered to be ripe for outbreak of various types of Flu.
Things have been made difficult following claims made by Jennifer Zeng, a New York based journalist pointing to yet another cover-up by the China of fresh COVID-19 cases being detected, following its claims of having achieved control over the outbreak, famously called as Zero cases reported.
Speaking to TheNews21, Dr Vinay Ratnalikar, consultant anaestheists at Singleton and Morriston hospitals at Swansea, UK argued that there is conclusive scientific medical research data available which can accurately state the incubation period of the Corona virus. He added that in many cases even a healthy individual may not overtly display symptoms of COVID-19, yet he remains the carrier of the virus and could possibly infect others.
