1. How did this huge number of new cases become infected?

 

2. Well, in the first place before they were tested positive, they were moving around and contacting a lot of other people who were already infected but were also not yet tested.

 

3. With lots of people moving around it is impossible to trace back the people who had contacted the 17,000 new cases. Now that they have been found to be positive, it becomes important to isolate them from people who have not yet been infected. The need is for all 17,000 people to be isolated i.e. to be properly quarantined.

 

4. The level of infection among the 17,000 is not the same. Obviously, they cannot all be admitted into hospital. Only the serious ones would be hospitalised and treated. The less serious would run into thousands. They cannot be properly quarantined. Most of them would have to stay at home.

 

5. But there are other people at homes. Most of them just cannot be isolated from family members. The end is that many or all the family members would be infected. Before they could be swabbed, they would move around and infect other people.

 

6. They and the people they contacted would show symptoms and when tested they would be positive. For each one sent home to be quarantined, 2 or 3 others would have become infected. As pointed out above, before they could be tested, they would infect others. From the 2 or 3, 2 or 3 others would be infected.

 

7. If out of 17,000, only 1,000 could be hospitalised the rest (16,000) would infect multiples of that number. So, the new cases would increase all the time. The bigger the number of those quarantined at home, the bigger the number of new cases.

 

8. We have missed the opportunity to reduce the number of new cases when they were small. Now it is impossible simply because of the multiplier effect of home quarantined cases.

 

9. The lockdown and SOP cannot work now. People are too tired or undisciplined to obey the most important SOP, i.e. staying apart. Many times, in the day they would be in contact with someone. If they fail to wear masks or wash their hands, the infection would take place.

 

10. During quarantine the different SOP would be breached many times.

 

11. The only answer would be vaccination. We are vaccinating 500,000 a day. But it is not enough. Free vaccination must be given to everyone very, very quickly.

 

12. Apart from the mega centres, there should be numerous mobile units going to the people wherever they may be. The Government should buy, borrow or steal in order to speed up.

 

13. If it doesn’t then the new cases would rapidly increase, the deaths would also be in the hundreds and the suicides would be dozens a day. All these create new problems which have to be handled.

 

14. Politics cannot solve these problems. It can only make matters worse.