COVID19: PIL in SC demands house-to-house mass testing
Satya Prakash
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, April 10
A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed in Supreme Court seeking directions to the government to start house-to-house mass testing for COVID-19, starting with areas most affected by Corona virus.
The petitioners — advocates Shashwat Anand, Ankur Azad and Faiz Ahmad and Sagar, law student from Allahabad — sought to highlight the manner in which India was attempting to fight the pandemic, especially with regard to the low rate of testing.
House-to-house mass testing for COVID-19 would help to trace, identify, isolate and treat those infected with the novel Corona virus, resulting in the chain of transmission being broken, they contended.
With the help of such an exercise in “exponential spread” of the virus to “every nook and corner” could be contained, the petitioners submitted.
Such testing should commence with states and cities, which were most severely affected and have been declared Corona virus hotspots, the petition demanded.
The petitioners relied on April 7 status report of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) according to which the Government was conducting merely 82 tests per Million people across India.
They said measures such as nationwide lockdown and social distancing would not get the desired results if mass testing was not done to trace, identify, isolate and treat those found with COVID19 infection.
