The second wave of Covid-19 stressed the medical infrastructure in the country. This time, the virus had spread to the rural areas which caused a lot of worry in the administration.
Varanasi, the Lok Sabha constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi quickly evolved a model which not only saved lives in Varanasi but in all the districts of eastern Uttar Pradesh.
The preparation started at many levels.
Senior IAS officer A K Sharma, who had just taken VRS from the services to join the BJP, was rushed to Varanasi.
He became the nodal officer for eastern Uttar Pradesh.
A Covid-19 control room was set up to monitor and coordinate all the Covid related efforts.
Manned 24×7 with 20 phone lines, many small teams of healthcare professionals were formed to visit the areas and provide the medicines for patients who had no symptoms or had mild symptoms.
A 750-bed hospital was quickly set-up with the help of the DRDO in BHU in Varanasi.
It has 250 bed ICU.
Sharma, a senior IAS officer in the Union government, streamlined the supply of essential medicines and medical Oxygen to the remotest part of the state.
The Yogi Adityanath government formed more than 22000 teams to increase testing in the rural areas.
Micro containment zones were formed to check the spread of the virus.
The PMO was getting regular updates from the district administration.
The result was visible.
The active cases were brought down from more than 1000 to under 300.
But, the district administration is in no mood to spare the virus.
So, the cases have come down but not the vigil.
