All-out efforts required to tackle coronavirus disaster

The current spread of coronavirus outbreak in the country can be considered as the beginning of the last phase. This means the infection has reached an epidemic level in the country. The upcoming days are very critical for us. There is a disaster management act in the country to tackle such situations. Taking appropriate measures under this act is now a must.

Following the nature of the epidemic and its spread across countries, it can be said that Bangladesh has entered a hard time already. This warrants for an all-out preparation. The developed countries have taken various strategies to tackle the situation, but we must consider our local perspective. Our financial and medical capacity is inadequate. Besides, our country is densely populated and we have the challenge to feed a huge number of poor people every day during this social distancing.

The only way to tackle this challenge is to utilise all our capacity in each sector. The national disaster management council stipulated in the disaster act must be activated and people must be informed of all the directives of this council. Such councils are supposed to include all ministries, head of the forces, cabinet secretaries and so on.

The coronavirus infection has reached such a level in the country that the issue is no longer only a concern for the health ministry. This must be considered as a national disaster. A national policy and plan including strategic directives must be implemented after being introduced by the national disaster management council. All the private sectors of the country must be included in such state initiate.

A number of initiatives including declaration of general holidays and social distancing have been undertaken to contain the spread of the virus outbreak. These must be implemented strictly, but an overall disaster management plan is required ‍as the life, sustenance and job of a lot of poor people are at stake. It’s hard to maintain the initiative of social distancing without paying attention to this reality. Economists and experts have already suggested various initiatives including relief and incentives. An effective way must be sorted out taking these into consideration.

As we are approaching the ultimate stage of infection, this could be apprehended that pressure will be mounted on our healthcare systems. We must be taking proper preparations in this regard. This situation cannot be tackled depending only on the government healthcare systems. All the countries of the world are trying to fight the situation along with government and private sectors. All the private healthcare institutions, pharmaceuticals, medical research institutions like icddr,b or the medical cores of the armed forces must be included in the disaster management. And this must be done without delay.