“Mobility restrictions based on total number of cases and/or positivity rates is unwarranted. Any decision in this regard must be based on occupancy of hospital beds, especially critical care beds, and other factors like oxygen consumption. Of course, care must be taken that the overall load on health infrastructure is at manageable levels. Needless to say, mobility restrictions must be highly localised and there should be a coordinated strategy at the national level with a view to balance lives and livelihoods.
Knee-jerk reactions at a state, city or municipal level will not achieve much in terms of containing the spread, while threatening economic recovery,” Ficci president Sanjiv Mehta, who leads Hindustan Unilever, said in a letter to health minister Mansukh Mandaviya.
Similarly, CII has suggested to the states that they should follow a micro-containment strategy, such as at the mohalla or village level, while allowing normal economic activity in rest of the district. “A combination of vaccination rate, hospitalisation incidence and sero-prevalence, if available, should be used as parameters to determine containment and subsequent opening in micro zones and the level of restrictions. Containment at micro zones should be considered only when available hospital beds are 75% occupied. Depending on this, the micro zones can be progressively closed or opened up,” it said, while pitching for a shift to a work-from-home format, wherever possible.
The representations come at a time when several states are imposing local curbs, which are expected to be the latest setback to economic recovery. In his letter to the health minister, Mehta has also pitched for reducing the quarantine period for those in home isolation from seven to five days, arguing that most patients affected by the latest variant are recovering in three-five days.
Mehta has also batted for extending the vaccination programme to those above 12 years on the grounds that keeping education institutions shut for long periods is not desirable. Ficci has also sought expanding the booster vaccine coverage to the entire population, while CII has proposed fast-tracking the precautionary dose programme.
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