The lockdown is like hitting a pause button on Covid-19, not a solution: Rahul Gandhi

NEW DELHI: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday called for unity to fight the coronavirus which has infected over 12,000 people in the country so far."I disagree with (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi with a lot of issues but now is not the time to fight. Unite and fight the virus," said Rahul during the presser through video conferencing held today.Rahul Gandhi also criticised the government's policy on tackling novel coronavirus, saying that the imposed lockdown is nothing but a "pause" button that is only going to delay the spread of the virus."Lockdown is in no way a solution to the Covid-19. Lockdown is like a pause button. When we come out of the lockdown, the virus is going to start its work again," he said.The Congress leader said that the lockdown is only going to lock up the disease and testing needs to be ramped up to tackle the situation."This has to be done via testing. India's testing rate is very low, we need to ramp up testing. You need two zones — hotspot and non-hotspot. When you lock people up, the disease gets locked up. When you open the door, the disease comes out," he added.He further said that the novel coronavirus infection "cannot" be controlled, it can only be "managed."Push testing aggressively and use testing strategically. To assist the states in their fight, use it not to just track patients but to create a map of India to see where the virus is moving," the Congress leader suggested.Rahul also warned the government of an impending food shortage crisis and urged the government to be prepared for it beforehand."Government should open up the food stocks and make them available to the poor, preemptively," he said.He also spoke in favour of "decentralisation" to manage the ongoing migrant crisis being reported from several parts of the country in the wake of the lockdown.The Congress leader also hailed the administration at district and state level for effectively tackling the spread of coronavirus."To fight against Covid-19, our main force is working at the state and district levels. Success has been achieved in Wayanad, Kerala because of the effective machinery at the district level," he added.On Wednesday, he demanded that emergency ration cards should be issued to those facing a shortage of foodgrains during the lockdown enforced to contain coronavirus.In a tweet, he had said lakhs of people were unable to take benefit of the public distribution system (PDS) as they do not have ration cards.More on Covid-19The lockdown, which was to end on April 14, has been extended till May 3 to prevent the spread of coronavirus.Earlier this month, he had taken a dig at the BJP-led government over the way lockdown was enforced, saying no country with such a huge number of migrant labourers has attempted it without arranging for their stay and food.The death toll due to coronavirus rose to 414 and the number of cases to 12,380 in the country on Thursday, according to the Union health ministry. While the number of active COVID-19 cases is 10,477, as many as 1,488 people have been cured and discharged and one had migrated, it said. The total number of cases include 76 foreign nationals. Twenty-two deaths were reported since Wednesday evening.