Coronavirus has made itself an uninvited guest in Karnataka, and so far solutions have been few. Initiatives taken have also been limited. Despite the government's efforts, the cases continue to soar. Karnataka's battle against has so far looked grim.
Aam Aadmi Party in Karnataka, however, has now joined in the fight with their own volunteer-led initiative. The AAPCares initiative launched on Thursday will see volunteers in full PPE kits make house visits around the city to check for early indicators and help citizens take precautions and nip the virus in the bud.
AAP Cares: A volunteer-led initiative
The Aam Aadmi Party on Thursday launched its new volunteer-led initiative called AAP Cares. The idea behind the initiative is to help early detection and prevention of Coronavirus, to contain the spread. Apart from making home visits to take temperature checks and check oxygen saturation levels of citizens, volunteers in full PPE kits will be involved in the disinfection and awareness drives.
The AAP in its press release said, "Since the State government has completely failed in responding to the crisis, causing fear and panic in the common man, the Aam Aadmi Party is launching the AAP Cares program across Karnataka, a volunteer-led initiative to help citizens and control the spread of the pandemic."
The Aam Aadmi Party has criticised the state government in its approach in containing the spread of the virus and not being able to use learning from the time gained in 'late peaking' of the state. The party further criticised the Karnataka government on its, "failure to provide Personal Protection Equipment (PPE's) has led to a large number of frontline health workers, including doctors, nurses, police personnel, BBMP pourakarmikas etc. are being infected by COVID-19 resulting in a reduced and demoralised frontline workforce. The salary settlements of Asha workers took almost 3 months and in many places, nurses and doctors are still protesting as their demands have still not been addressed. Apart from the failure in controlling the situation, there are serious allegations of corruption in procurements and contracts related to COVID-19."
Speaking at the launch, State Convenor for AAP in Karnataka, Prithvi Reddy said, "Especially for the people, we've created an initiative AAP Cares. People are scared today, there's confusion among people, there's a panic among people. To solve that, and to give people some support we've launched this initiative to help them on the basis of their symptoms and issues in different ways." The initiative will be carried out across the state.
It's still to be seen whether the well-intentioned initiative will generate a positive response.
