When Mumbai joined the fight to contain the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) adopted a four-pronged strategy—Tracing, Tracking, Testing and Treating—to keep the rising numbers in check. The model, which was behind the success of Mission Dharavi, was even lauded by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Two years on, a lot has changed. With city COVID-19 cases spiralling in the last three weeks—from 809 cases on December 27, 2021 to 13,702 cases by January 13—“tracing” has become a Herculean task. World over, overwhelmed health authorities are already giving up on contact tracing. In Germany, for instance, several states, including Baden-Württemberg, Berlin, Hamburg, and Teichert, have completely suspended the search for contacts of infected people, focusing primarily on recording the numerous Coronavirus infections. South Africa, where the highly transmissible Omicron variant was first detected, also stopped contact tracing, claiming that “80 per cent of the population has some immunity by either vaccines or past illness”.

With the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) issuing fresh guidelines, stating that only symptomatic patients, and those at high risk, like elders and people with co-morbidities, get tested for COVID-19, experts feel that there is a need to relook at the present “contact tracing” model as well. “It is the most controversial issue right now,” says Dr Khusrav Bajan, head emergency and critical care consultant at PD Hinduja Hospital and member of Maharashtra’s COVID-19 task force. “The pendulum has been swinging back and forth, from doing it to not, across the world.”