With 19,063 cases and 731 COVID-19 deaths, the Coronavirus statistics in Maharashtra are becoming scarier with every passing day, and the ground situation is no better either.
Amidst the Coronavirus Pandemic, the Uddhav Thackeray government has come out looking like an all-round failure in Maharashtra with migrant crises, an infected jail, infected COVID-19 warriors- policemen, hospitals turned hotspots and videos of COVID-19 patients lying next to dead bodies.
As per latest reports as many as 714 police personnel have tested positive for the novel Coronavirus, and five of them have succumbed to the Wuhan infection in the state that is fast becoming India’s Hubei.
A video posted by Nitesh Rane, allegedly from the Dharavi area- one of the worst-affected areas in Mumbai, exposes why police personnel are testing positive at such a worrying rate- they can be seen sleeping without any social distancing measures and facilities on pavements, many of them not wearing even protective masks.
It seems as if the state government has exposed the police personnel to the novel virus, which is why hundreds of them have ended up getting infected.
https://twitter.com/NiteshNRane/status/1258662010847260673
Maharashtra is not only facing the Pandemic, but sheer lawlessness in the state with as many as 194 incidents of assault on police personnel during the lockdown period. To make matters worse, the biggest jail in Mumbai- Arthur Road Jail has also been hit by the Coronavirus Pandemic with 77 undertrials and 26 jail staffers testing positive for the novel infection.
Where will the new undertrials and arrested accused be lodged, if the biggest jail in the Capital city becomes inhabitable? Maharashtra is on the verge of a law and order breakdown with hundreds of policemen taking ill and the biggest jail in Mumbai turning into a Coronavirus hotspot.
Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has already suggested that the state may seek additional forces from the Centre to afford rest to the stretched Maharashtra police force. This paints a rather grim picture of the uphill task that the COVID-19 warriors are themselves facing in the worst-hit state insofar the Coronavirus Pandemic is concerned.
Hospitals in Maharashtra that supposed to check the spread of the Pandemic are unable to insulate themselves from the novel infection. Since April, several hospitals in Maharashtra have been declared containment zones, and Mumbai’s Wockhardt Hospital was one of the first medical facilities to be declared a containment zone after 29 staffers- 3 doctors and 26 nurses tested positive for COVID-19. Jaslok Hospital and Bhatia Hospital too had to be sealed after they were declared Coronavirus containment zones.
In Pune, a huge cluster took a grip of the DY Patil Hospital after 92 hospital staffers were put in quarantine after a patient, who was undergoing treatment, tested positive for the novel Coronavirus.
Even other hospitals are grappling with the Pandemic, and a video posted by BJP leader, Nitesh Rane has exposed the unprofessional handing of the public health crisis in Mumbai.
COVID-19 patients were seen lying next to dead bodies covered in black plastic bags at the LTMG hospital (Sion hospital) in Mumbai’s Sion area.
In Sion hospital..patients r sleeping next to dead bodies!!!
This is the extreme..what kind of administration is this!
Very very shameful!! @mybmc pic.twitter.com/NZmuiUMfSW— nitesh rane ( Modi ka Parivar ) (@NiteshNRane) May 6, 2020
To exacerbate Maharashtra’s woes, the state has also been facing a migrant crisis but the Uddhav Thackerary government seems clueless. Last month, there was a massive migrant crisis that held led to a major tumult at Bandra that defeated the idea of a lockdown and social distancing in the first place.
Sixteen migrant workers were also mowed down by a goods train in Maharashtra’s Aurangabad on Friday when they were trying to return to their native state, Madhya Pradesh on foot. The tragedy exposes that the Coronavirus Pandemic is not the only thing going wrong with the state of Maharashtra, and the Uddhav Thackeray government is actually failing on all fronts.
Uddhav Thackeray’s inefficiency and delayed decision-making has left the entire state in trouble. Initially, it was only Mumbai that was facing the brunt of the Coronavirus Pandemic but now the cases are rising in other parts of the state with equal intensity and it seems as if the outbreak in Mumbai has opened the floodgates of COVID-19 cases in other parts of the state too.
From infected policemen to the migrant crises and jail hotspots to infected hospitals, everything seems to be going downhill in the state of Maharashtra.
