COVID-19: Violations lead to spike in 5 districts, Punjab Government reworks strategy

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 20

With Punjab cities driving up the number of Covid cases, the state government has now reworked its strategy for controlling the spread. The biggest hindrance, however, is clearly the unwillingness of people to follow the rules.

There is little compliance on wearing of masks properly, maintaining social distancing or even adhering to the norms laid down for social gatherings. On Saturday, a wedding was held within a micro-containment zone where neither the hosts nor the 100 guests invited for the function wore masks or maintained social distancing. Several other such incidents are being reported regularly.

Over the past one week, nearly 70 per cent of all fresh cases were reported from Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar, Patiala and Mohali. As the number of daily cases seems to be hovering around 300, the state has formed technical committees with representation from the World Health Organisation (WHO) in all these districts.

The administrative officials in these districts have been asked to speed up testing, with a daily limit of 10,150 tests each. Dr Rajiv Bhaskar, spokesperson for the state government on Covid-19, said rapid antigen testing had started in all these districts.

Hospitals in Ludhiana, which has the highest number of 1,926 cases (640 active), are finding it difficult to accommodate patients. Civil Surgeon, Dr Rajesh Bagga said they were using a three-pronged strategy to deal with the pandemic – maximum sampling, campaign to persuade people to get tested and marking micro-containment and containment zones.

Mohali too is seeing another wave of infections. Girish Dayalan, Deputy Commissioner, said their strategy was to ensure that the people cooperate in following the rules. “We are tracking patients with co-morbid conditions and referring them to tertiary care hospitals,” he said.