From Monday, the Itanagar capital region (ICR) and its surrounding areas in Papum Pare district will enter into a lockdown as the whole area has been declared as a containment zone. This comes as the number of Covid-19 cases is rising at an alarming rate across the state. On a daily basis the cases are rising above 200. What is worrying the doctors is that, this time a large number of patients are young and symptomatic. The ICR has become the second region after Lower Dibang Valley (LDV) district to go for a complete lockdown. LDV has extended the 10 days’ lockdown by another seven days.
Covid-19 cases are being reported from almost every district of the state. Considering this, instead of going for district-wise lockdown, the state government should impose statewide lockdown for 10 days to stop the spread of the virus. States like Kerala and Tamil Nadu are already in statewide lockdown. The district-wise lockdown will in fact lead to further spread of the virus. The moment the lockdown is announced in a particular district, government employees start leaving for their home districts and this may cause spread of the virus. As soon as the lockdown was announced in the ICR, many fled to the districts. It is feared that in the coming days, the number of cases in the districts may rise because of this move. Before the situation gets worse, the state government should go for complete lockdown of the state. During the lockdown period, the health department should aggressively conduct mass testing and immediately isolate the infected people. They also need to ramp up the health infrastructure to meet the challenges.