Nearly 50 per cent of the Covid-19 cases reported in Jharkhand till date surfaced in the first nine days of June, figures released by the National Health Mission (NHM) and compiled by The Telegraph Online highlight.
As per official data of the state government, out of the 1,423 cases of Covid-19 infection reported in Jharkhand till Wednesday afternoon, as many as 626 surfaced from June 1 to June 9 – the period when the government decided to offer major relaxations from lockdown curbs in what the Centre called Unlock 1.0.
The number of cases reported in these nine days account for around 44 per cent of the total cases that have come to light in Jharkhand so far – a trend that could be attributed to the return of migrants coupled with relaxations from lockdown curbs, health officials said.
In adherence to the latest lockdown guidelines issued by the ministry of home affairs (MHA), the Jharkhand government decided to resume public transport and open consumer electronics shops, automobile showrooms and service centres in the first week of June. The relaxations paved the way for busier roads and crowded markets.
However, the return of migrants had a greater role to play in the skyrocketing Covid figures than the relaxations from lockdown restrictions, a senior health official here said. According to NHM, at least 1,100 of the 1,400-odd Covid-19 cases in Jharkhand are that of migrants. This means, infected migrants alone form around 77 per cent of the total Covid-19 cases reported in the tribal state so far.
“Most of the Covid cases that came to light since the first week of May are migrant workers. The figures are self-explanatory,” said state health secretary Nitin Madan Kulkarni.
Dr Prabhat Kumar, the in-charge of Jharkhand's Covid-19 task force, agreed. However, he said that the administration in all the 24 districts of the state must also ensure that locals use face masks and maintain social distancing even though lockdown curbs have been lifted partially.
“The districts must pay special attention on migrants. Every district must ensure that all the migrants are quarantined for the stipulated period, and none of them comes in direct contact with other locals before the quaratntine period is over,” Kumar said.
The state government has so far collected samples of nearly 1 lakh Covid-19 suspects from across Jharkhand, and more than 1,400 of them have tested positive. At least 95,000 of the 1,00,000-odd samples collected have been tested so far, officials from NHM said.