Telangana State has been in a 'state of denial' on Covid-19

It all started on March 3 this year, when Telangana recorded its first case of coronavirus in a techie who returned from Dubai via Bengaluru. A massive hunt for the contacts was started and the residential area he lived in was sanitised. The government seemed serious in tackling this issue. Then after a while the Chief Minister went on to make some absurd and irrational comments in the Legislative Assembly. He stated that the virus could be tackled just with paracetamol, and it would fire(burn itself) at a temperature of more than 22 C. He went on to comment that considering the summer of the state the virus wouldn't come even if it was invited. This was followed by a huge applause by his MLA's who were laughing and mocking the virus. Not to forget the CM went on to say that if needed his MLA's would work to contain the virus without masks.

Everything seemed under control for the next 2 weeks after which slowly cases started to rise after which the nationwide lockdown was announced on March 23rd. Telangana having a metropolitan city of Hyderabad was expected to find itself in a tricky situation in the fight against Covid. For the whole of April, we recorded cases in double digits which seemed fair though we did not know the number of tests which were being conducted. Not to forget our CM was always one step further in announcing extension of lockdowns when compared to the Central Government.

Then came May when cases started to dip in Telangana as opposed to other states, and at one point of time Telangana reported cases in single digits for an entire week. It seemed just like a Kerala model, the Telangana model would be looked upto and other states would follow us. Nothing seemed fishy yet as testing numbers were still not known.

Then came June, when testing was ramped up by ICMR and many states like AP, increased their testing capacities tremendously and looked for alternative methods of testing like antigen detection and TruNat. Telangana stood firm that it would employ only the RT-PCR as it is the most sensitive. Seemed fair enough as even the Niti Aayog predicted everything would be in control by the starting of June.

But later everything toppled, with all predictions going wrong and the migrant crises became a major issue. The Central Government's decision to make people stay put wherever they are was not possible, and migrants travel had to be facilitated. With no treatment available, only one strategy existed which was "Test, Test ,Test and isolate".

This was the time when focus shifted on how much was every state testing. Every state updated information about no. of tests being conducted daily except Telangana with every minister telling only a single statement " We are following the ICMR guidelines, but never specified what they are".

Neighbouring states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu were testing more than 10,000 per day, due to which many PIL's were filed following which the High Court urged the government to bring out the numbers. The numbers came out and it was a shock " We were testing 200 per day in the first week of June and had conducted only 40,000 tests in total". Baffled by this the court urged the government to test more, but the advice had fallen on deaf ears as nothing changed. Soon the media started questioning the government, and the IT Minister who is very busy these days showing us works of cable bridge and various fly overs opined "Are we going to get a price if we test more?"

As everyone is aware of the news with daily reports of the dilapidated state of affairs at government hospitals and with few MLA's testing positive who directly got themselves admitted at private hospitals, a stark difference against the CM views that everyone no matter how rich or influential will be admitted at Gandhi. This clearly shows private hospitals were allowed to treat only after their MLAs tested positive.

The state government has been caught napping on handling the crisis, but what's worse is their arrogance to not change themselves. Every accusation against the facilities at Gandhi hospital are deemed false and any questions on the low testing is countered with a single statement " We are following ICMR", as if we are the only state given guidelines and not others. When revenue deficit states like AP are testing close to 30,000 per day it is a shame that testing had to be stopped to clear backlogs when we tested 30,000 over 6 days.

Demolishing works of Secretariat have been started right from the next day the High court dismissed PIL's, but increase in testing couldn't be done even after 15 days of the High court's order. With every national media constantly reporting the faults of the government and the Central teams visiting the state repeatedly asking to ramp up testing, the government's attitude definitely needs a reality check. When the doctors at Gandhi hospital went on strike recently for decentralisation and protection, the CM hadn't even given an appointment, but finds ample time to call Chinna Jeeyar Swamy for irrigation canal inaugurations. Nothing wrong in that, but shows how u prioritise the subject of Health in your state.

With a positivity rate of 30 per cent which is the highest in the country, and having the biggest spike recently when compared to any other state, if the government still does not find the need to ramp up testing, finding ourselves in a Mumbai like situation is almost certain and we are already moving in that direction and will find ourselves in a similar situation in the next 10 days. This complacent attitude of the government is leading to citizens taking things for granted. I urge the citizens of the state especially of Hyderabad, to be alert as the virus is now everywhere. If u still fall prey to believing there is no community transmission in Hyderabad, that will be the biggest lie you are telling yourself.

If you get infected, it is you who will be running from hospital to hospital from pillar to post and it will be you who may have to spend lakhs of rupees to save your loved ones. Just the way we thought we shouldn't be making the mistakes the European Nations did, already Telangana is being projected in a similar way to not follow our model to avoid jeopardy. Just like how the Central Government has got itself involved and helped Delhi in combating the virus, I hope the Central Government interferes in policy making otherwise it doesn't seem the State Government is going to do anything radical to protect its citizens. With the monsoon arriving, things only seem to be going in the wrong direction. Hope the government rectifies its fault and not continue to stay in a state of denial and save the state from further damage.