COVID not conspiracy but a real threat; opening parks, yatra confusing: Omar Abdullah

However, he alleged that opening of parks, hotels and yatra (pilgrimage to holy Amarnath cave shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas) send confused and mixed signals to people about the pandemic.

Taking to micro blogging site Twitter, the vice president of the National Conference (NC) said, ''These tweets by Doctors about #COVID19 should give all of us a reason to stop & reflect''.

He further said, ''COVID is not some conspiracy to harass us. It's real & it's serious. The government doesn't help matters with its confused messaging & mixed signals vis a vis parks, hotels & yatra."

He was reacting to a tweet by Dr Tariq Tramboo MD, FIPP, interventional pain specialist. Chairman of the scientific board, Spineloop International and a co- inventor of loop technology for spinal stenosis which reads ''Attention: Covid 19 spreading, like wild fire ,, overnight 20 young to Middle age pts (patients) admitted in SMHS with bilateral pneumonia and 10 in JNLM (Jawahar Lal Nehru Memobial) hopital, Protect yourself if you can because no one seems to care!"

Despite sharp increase in the COVID-19 cases, the government reopened all gardens and parks in the Union Territory (UT), including summer capital, Srinagar from Wednesday.

The Centre has also given its nod to the annual Amarnath yatra in south Kashmir Himalayas, evoking sharp demand to reopen shrines and other religious places of all faiths in the valley.

So far, 151 people have died due to COVID-19. Of the total fatalities, 16 succumbed during the past three days in Jammu and Kashmir, where 9000 have tested positive.

Dr Tramboo said that at least 60 young boys have symptoms of pneumonia since last three days in the valley. The earlier lockdown was futile, he said, adding that closing of borders would have been enough, and now is the time to take containment measures, he said.

Dr Tramboo said strict Lockdown for at least seven days with strict fine for not wearing masks and flouting lockdown protocols should be implemented orr the health sector in the union territory would collapse. 

"We don’t have the Hospital infra to tackle huge wave of coronavirus cases. On the other, hand people are not ready to wear masks. Brief lockdown is the need of hour or else we are doomed," he warned.

''Either the virus has mutated or people are extremely careless. Lot of young people are being admitted with bilateral pneumonia. We will soon find no space in hospitals. Stay inside for few weeks. Situation is really dangerous,'' he cautioned.

''Japan has less than 1,000 covid deaths. They never went in to full economic shut down. They have an unemployment rate of 2.6 per cent. How did they do it? Virtually, everybody in that country wears a mask,'' he pointed out.