Covid surge: Punjab extends night curfew to all districts, bans political rallies

These restrictions, coupled with the ones imposed earlier, which include closure of schools and educational institutions, will remain effective till April 30. However, there was some respite for shop owners in malls, as the chief minister allowed entry of 10 people per shop at any given time, as against the earlier order of not allowing more than 100 people in a mall at one time. This would imply that 200 people will be allowed in a mall with 20 shops at any given time.

In his weekly review of the Covid situation, Amarinder expressed concern at the high positivity and mortality rates in the state. He said it was matter of concern that over 85 per cent cases in Punjab are of the UK strain, which is more contagious and virulent.

He said he had no option but to opt for stricter measures to further control the ongoing surge, even though the number of positive cases had somewhat stabilised in the last few days due to curbs imposed earlier. He said he had been forced to order a ban on political gatherings as his pleas to all political parties to refrain from organising such events had been ignored, despite the fact that the Congress had unilaterally announced its decision of not holding any rallies or public meetings last month.

Expressing surprise at the “behaviour of certain political leaders”, including Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, and SAD president Sukhbir Badal, at political rallies, the chief minister said: “How do you expect people to be serious about the spread of the disease if senior political leaders behave like this?” He added that his government would need to be tough to tackle such violations and political leaders would also need to be booked.

He ordered the police and district administrations to register cases against the political leaders, organizers and participants of political gatherings under Disaster Management and Epidemic Diseases Acts, besides booking the owners of tent houses, who provide infrastructure for such gatherings. He said even the venue owners, who would provide space for such events, would be booked and their venues sealed for three months.

The CM further said that no social, cultural or sports gatherings and related functions will be allowed till April 30. In-person public dealing shall be restricted in all government offices and online and virtual modes for grievance redressal shall be encouraged.

Captain Amarinder said citizens should to be encouraged to visit public offices only for essential services and the concerned departments should issue instructions for limiting daily appointments for works like registries etc. He said restrictions of running cinema houses at 50 per cent capacity and closure of schools and educational institutions, except medical and nursing colleges, shall continue till April 30.

The chief minister also directed Punjab DGP Dinkar Gupta to ensure strict implementation of the night curfew.

Health dept told to expand vaccination drive

With the Covid positivity and Case Fatality Rate (CFR) rates in Punjab hitting 7.7 per cent and 2 per cent respectively in the last week, Amarinder directed the health department to further increase the vaccination drive and target vaccinating 2 lakh patients per day. He also directed the officials to increase sampling to 50,000 per day, besides vigorously pursuing contact tracing to 30 people per positive patient.

Expressing concern at the high CFR rate, the chief minister said he was pained by these deaths, many of which are avoidable with timely treatment. He directed Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan to undertake a massive public awareness campaign to motivate people to approach hospitals at early stages. He said the quality of healthcare in hospitals also needs to be improved and the list of approved hospitals with required facilities should be put out in the public domain. A death audit should be done by all districts and private facilities which are not participating in the expert group discussions should be encouraged to do so.

The chief minister, who was informed by the health department that PGI was refusing to admit patients from Punjab despite being referred through proper channels, said that he would take up the matter with the Prime Minister at Thursday’s video conferencing meeting and would request him to direct the hospital to reserve at least 50 ICU beds for patients referred by the state government.

He said that though around 90,000 people were being vaccinated per day under the current vaccination drive, this needed to be raised to 2 lakh people per day. “Vaccination is the only way to prevent the spread,” he said.

He also asked the chief secretary to address the issue of vaccination hesitancy by undertaking well-designed media campaigns. He said he would again urge the union government for relaxation in the age criteria for vaccinating people under the age of 45 years in areas showing weekly doubling of positivity rate. He reiterated his demand that the Union government should allow vaccinations to all potential super-spreaders — students above 18 years, teachers, councillors, sarpanches etc.

Vaccination supply

On the issue of vaccination supply, Vini Mahajan informed the chief minister that the Union government had assured that the state would not face any shortage.

The chief minister was assured by the health department that daily sampling would be increased to 50,000 – 35,000 RTPCR and 15,000 Rapid Antigen Tests. He was however, informed that the Government of India’s institutions — IISER, IMTech, AIIMS, PGIMER – were sampling only 100 per day, which is low, and the matter was being taken up with the Centre.

DGP Dinkar Gupta informed the chief minister that all districts were taking penal action against violation of Covid protocols and so far, 2.03 lakh people had been taken for RTPCR tests after they were found not wearing masks in public. He also said that 43,000 challans had been issued and Rs 3.60 crore worth of fines had been collected, besides registration of 206 FIRs and arrests of 246 people.

On the vaccination front, Gupta said 77 per cent police personnel had been vaccinated with the first dose and of these 26 per cent had taken the second shot too.

The meeting was also attended by Cabinet ministers O P Soni (Medical Education) and Balbir Sidhu (Health), medical experts Dr K K Talwar and Dr Raj Bahadur and Principal Health Secretary Hussan Lal.