With Covid cases rising exponentially across the country and decoding the preceding week’s curve, it was feared that 1.5 lakh daily increase will be impossible to avoid. Sunday proved the fearsome anticipation true with 1,52,879 addition. Total cases are now over 1.33 crore and with 839 more deaths in last 24 hours, death tally is also over 1.69 lakh. What’s extremely concerning about the day’s development is that several states have witnessed the highest single-day spike so far, both in terms of the first wave of 2020 and that of the current year. Such ‘records’ have been made by Uttar Pradesh and most unfortunately Delhi, which once became hugely successful in fighting Covid. The ‘milestones’ which are now seemingly grim are going to be elbowed out with higher versions the very next day- such is the gravity of the situation. It’s not at all surprising that stop-gap measures such as weekend lockdowns, closure of educational institutions and night curfews have been rolled out in many states and more will follow. While there are many questions invading people’s minds over the second wave, the one which is perhaps the first of the lot is whether there will be complete lockdowns? No answer as yet. But it must be the silent appeal of all that such extreme measure is not taken at any cost. The nation is yet to recoup from the devastating consequences of the economic disaster caused by the 2020 complete lockdown(s).

All eyes were on Maharashtra and various news reports on Saturday and those flowing in till Sunday afternoon suggested that a 15-day complete lockdown was imminent. But, from late evening’s development it transpired that due to lack of consensus, a further meeting has been convened. Evidently, even if things are very critical in that state which has been the contributor of more than half of total active cases in the country, an extreme decision of complete closure of everything is still difficult to take. Even the WHO Chief Scientist Dr Soumya Swaminathan on the eve of World Health Day on April 7 last while appealing all countries to take appropriate measures to contain the second Covid wave have cautioned not to try again the full lockdown option. The one liner: “Consequences are terrible” carries the message she wanted to convey. If this goes out for the governments, for citizens, it has been a further plea to observe all protective measures. Like the rest of the country Arunachal has seen a rise in cases in the just-concluding week. Besides observing all SOPs, citizens’ participation in vaccination must maintain the desired speed and not just only during Tika Utsav.

Three mustn’t be a Maharashtra-like scenario in Arunachal when thoughts of full lockdowns become inevitable. The key lies in the hands of both citizens and the state government.