Anadi Tewari
Due to rising COVID-19 cases in the state of Goa, a Public Interest Litigation has been moved before the Bombay High Court at Goa seeking availability of a common platform for information on bed availability, ICUs and Oxygen and has also sought imposition of 15 days lockdown in the state of Goa.
The petitions moved by activists Armando Gonsalves and Shruti Chaturvedi and the Vice President of Goa Forward Party Durgadas Kamat sought intervention from the High Court in this matter.
The petitioners have urged the Court to direct the authorities to impose a 15 days lockdown in the state and to also make it mandatory for passengers travelling to Goa to have a negative RT-PCR test report.
The letter petition filed by the activists also cites the example of Maldives which is also a popular tourists destination that has kept tourism afloat but demanded a negative RT-PCR report from those coming into the archipelago country.
The petition moved by Durgadas Kamat has stated that the state of Goa has seen a positivity rate of up to 50℅ over the last few days and seeks the High Court’s intervention in this issue.
According to a news report today, Goa has reported 71 deaths over a 24 hour period which is the highway single day death toll since the pandemic began last year. As per another news report yesterday, Goa has reported over 27000 active cases of COVID-19 of which around 3500 are new cases. The state has seen an almost 10-fold rise in the number of active cases in April and recorded its highest single-day mortality count on Wednesday.