Nagpur has become the hotspot for coronavirus as it figured among top 10 corona-affected districts in the country. It is evident from the rising cases and the deaths that the coronavirus is causing. The list released by Health and Family Welfare Ministry, Government of India has mentioned top 10 districts in the country as COVID-affected. Of those 10 districts eight alone are from Maharashtra including Nagpur. At present, Nagpur everyday is witnessing close to 4,000 COVID-19 cases and around 50 deaths. Nagpur witnessed first case on March 11 in 2020. Then the cases were not much. Gradually, cases kept rising and situation gone out of control.

 

Nagpur had heaved a sigh of relief around June when new cases, deaths had witnessed drastic reduction. Suddenly in the month of August, city experienced torrent of COVID-19 cases and situations started getting worse. During the same period, the administration in Nagpur took all measures like the task force was constituted, administrators were appointed in Government Hospitals, administration monitored the situation daily, the supply of drugs, Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) everything was streamlined. But that did not work and hospitals witnessed full occupancy. Of course the situation did not remain as it is for long time and cases, deaths all again came down. In fact schools, colleges were re-opened, the routine work began. Everybody felt that now COVID-19 had gone. Institutions merely ran for 40 days and coronavirus again came.

 

In January, the cases again gone up. Initially the death count stood at 3 or 5 but without anybody understands the cases rose to over 4,000. Nagpur district is daily witnessing around 50 deaths which is causing worry to the administrators. Government has capped the hospital rates, In Nagpur, the whole administration is working on reducing the cases and decreasing the deaths. Dr Nitin Raut, Guardian Minister, had declared lockdown in the first week of March but that did not yield any result. In fact during the period of lockdown cases surged beyond limits. People who run their homes on the basis of daily wages got devastated due to lockdown. Finally, the all-party leaders took decision not to impose lockdown. Nagpur is witnessing a bizarre situation.

 

There is a stiff opposition from all quarters of the city not to impose lockdown as it is not a permanent solution. On the other hand, the cases are not coming down. Administration, healthcare workers, political leaders all are confused of managing the situation. It is learnt that Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) in Nagpur are likely to launch strike as they have to work 24 hours. The laboratory in Government Medical and College and Hospital (GMCH) is facing another problem as its COVID -19 testing machine got damaged. The testing is suffering plus 100 beds have been added in GMCH set-up. Nobody knows when the cases would come down. 

The people of Nagpur district on Saturday witnessed a slight respite as new positive cases have been reduced, number of deaths has decreased and the recovery rate has improved by 0.30%. Today 3,720 tested positive (5 are the residents from out of Nagpur district) for coronavirus in district of which 1,126 came positive in Nagpur rural while city reported 2,589 fresh cases of COVID-19. With these the cumulative cases reached 2,37,496 (1,048 are the persons reside out of Nagpur district). COVID deaths continued to haunt the district administration as 47 became victims to this dreaded virus (five persons who died were the residents of the places from outside Nagpur district). This has taken the cumulative death count to 5,265 of which 866 persons were the residents of the places from outside Nagpur district.

 

A good number of persons became corona-free in Nagpur district as 3,660 have been recovered taking the cumulative recovery to 1,91,141. The recovery rate too has improved by 0.30% to 80.60%. Of course the recovery still is not upto the mark due to which number of active cases has gone up to 40,820. The testing count in district on Saturday has reduced almost by 2,000 to 15,593. Number of testing in Nagpur rural reported is 4,941 while city’s count stood at 10,652. This has taken the cumulative testing count to 16,74,838. The samples examined through RTPCR were 12,376 while 3,217 were through Rapid Antigen Test. Apart from the samples of Nagpur district, the people from Nagpur and out of city approached various laboratories in Nagpur to get themselves examined. The samples came for examination at various laboratories in Nagpur include virology laboratory of Indira Gandhi Government Medical College and Hospital (IGGMCH) (2,112), Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) (188), molecular diagnostic laboratory of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) (1,615), National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) (282), Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University (RTMNU) (788) private laboratories (7,391), Antigen (3,217).

 

BJYM comes forward to help COVID-19 patients Taking serious cognizance of the problems being faced by the people suffering from coronavirus, Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) has come forward to extend the helping hand to the people. According to BJYM, private hospitals are expected to bifurcate the COVID treatment in terms of charging amount from the patients. Citing the document issued by Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) BJYM pointed out, “The order says, private hospitals should charge patients as per the norms prescribed by Government from 80% patients. Of the total, the hospitals can charge the remaining 20% patients as per the hospital rates.

 

Hospitals are not following this norms and are charging exorbitantly from the COVID patients. Our team recently got the calls from the people. BJYM reached there and resolved the issues.” Now BJYM has appealed people to contact it in case they face any problem. BJYM has created the helpline numbers. They include 9022124640 Helpline Number, BJYM City President Parendra (Vicky) Patle +919823531899, Yash Satpute +91 89834 13093, Amar Dharmare +91 93731 99787, Sunny Raut +91 878-8321060, Badal Raut +91 95953 38156, Shekhar Kuryavanshi +91 98503 62319, Pankaj Sonkar +91 93268 14311.