Heavy rain is forecast for parts of Bihar over the next five days
Patna:
Doctors at a COVID-19 care facility in Supaul district, Bihar, were forced to use golf carts to get to the medical center, where coronavirus patients receive care after severe rains have left the surrounding roads waterlogged.
Viewing moving images of their situation, a young man can be seen passively sitting on a plastic chair in the back of a green cart-bike as he plows through standing water to his knees .
The medical center, a dilapidated one-story building, is seen in the background, opposite a small vacant plot overgrown with weeds.
“This has been the situation for two or three days. We cannot leave our patients at the moment. That is why we must go there even if there is rain and floods,” said the young doctor, Dr. Amrendra. Said Kumar.
Fortunately, added Dr. Kumar, most of the COVID-19 patients were on the first floor and therefore protected from flooding.
This is not the first problematic incident for the state health department, which has also been criticized for its low rates of coronavirus testing.
The screening rate in Bihar is one of the lowest in the country – around 2,000 per million; in Delhi the figure is around 32,000 per million.
Heavy rain is forecast for parts of Bihar over the next five days, according to IMD.
Opposition Leader Tejashwi Yadav targeted Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on this issue, especially since a COVID-19 test for Mr. Kumar was quickly organized; the results arrived in two hours.
The chief minister tested positive after hosting a program in which he later participated. Mr. Kumar had a negative result, even though a close relative who stayed with him had given a positive result.
“The poor die. But instead of caring for them, these people only worry about their chairs,” said Yadav, who is also the leader of the opposition in the Bihar assembly.
Bihar’s chief deputy minister Sushil Kumar Modi defended the government’s test rate, saying last week that it had been increased to around 9,000 a day.
Bihar, which is banned for 16 days from Thursday to prevent further spread of the virus, has to date more than 20,000 cases and a health facility that is already starting to feel the pressure. More than 170 deaths have been linked to the virus.
In the past 24 hours, 1,320 new cases have been detected, including the president of Bihar BJP, Sanjay Jaiswal, and members of his family.
And if the challenge of containing one of the most infectious viruses in recent times has not been sufficient, the government must now also deal with the inevitable fallout from the monsoon rains.
According to the IMD (India Meteorological Department), thunderstorms (accompanied by lightning and strong winds) are very likely over Bihar over the next five days – until July 19.
Heavy rain alerts were announced across Bihar by IMD for Saturday and Sunday.
