Coronavirus Update in India: India's Handling Of Coronavirus

India's Handling Of Coronavirus - 7 Steps Urgently Required

Coronavirus: In India, over 100 people have been tested positive (File)

New Delhi: India is making the terrible mistake of not testing enough people, warn many health experts as they assess how the government is handling the coronavirus outbreak.

Here are the steps that India needs to immediately take:

There could be thousands and thousands of people who are infected at the moment - what is referred to as "community transmission" - and we just don't know. These infected but not tested/known people are currently infecting thousands of others. South Korea's success in fighting the virus is being attributed to the amazing numbers of people that they test, including through drive-in test centres. India needs to immediately make testing widely accessible.
Allow the private sector to test. Currently, private labs are banned from conducting these tests after the government invoked an 1896 Act, which was designed and enacted to tackle the plague.
India has also banned the use of many international testing kits that are in use abroad. These tests are still being checked. Many of these testing kits (eg by Roche and others) are being used in the US and Europe.
The current practice of people who want to be tested having to queue up at government hospitals must stop. While waiting in queue, people are potentially infecting each other. Tests must be done by collecting the nasal swabs from people's homes. This needs huge numbers of collectors. Only by including the private sector can India provide this vital service.
Testing must be made free. The government needs to immediately set aside large amount of funds to ensure this.
The government must lift the ban on infected patients being admitted at private hospitals. In fact, the government should insist that private hospitals create isolation wards and take in coronavirus patients.
After widespread testing is implemented, a larger number of people will be identified as infected by the coronavirus. It is essential that each one of these identified persons must be interviewed in detail, gently, to find exactly who they have been in contact with. This is an enormous job requiring massive reasonably trained manpower. For this, the Army needs to be inducted. They have the discipline and the manpower to handle such a huge requirement.