With rural areas, which were largely unaffected in the first wave, now showing a Covid spike, Punjab Chief Minister Captain AmarinderSingh on Friday urged villagers to restrict movement into their villages to only those persons who are free of thevirus.
Addressing the people of the state in a live Facebooktelecast, the Chief Minister called for strict measures in the rural areas overthe next two months, which he described as extremely crucial. “Now the ruralareas are seeing a surge in cases, so we need to be very careful,” he said,urging villagers to conduct ‘thikri pheras’ to keep outsiders away and allowonly Covid-free people to enter.
Exhorting people to “save your mohallas and villages tosave yourself, your families and Punjab”, the Chief Minister asked them not todelay going to hospitals in time. “We have teams of doctors everywhere,approach them if you feel unwell,” he urged them, stressing that delay in goingfor treatment was leading to people ending up in L3 level. While occupancy ofL2 beds is 50%, at the L3 level, around 90% of the beds are currently occupied,and the state government is in the process of adding another 2000, he pointedout, attributing this to people not going for treatment in time.
Noting that there are three stages of the disease, ofwhich the first can be managed at home, Captain Amarinder reiterated his pleato the people to go to the doctor at the first sign of symptoms. “Let the docdecide the course of treatment, don’t get into diagnosis and medicationyourself,” he appealed to them.
“I fail to understand why we are harming the interests ofthe state and your families in this manner,” he said, adding that “we do notwant Punjab to go the way of Delhi and Maharashtra, which have experiencedunprecedented problems amid the 2nd wave.” The disease was wreaking havoc theworld over, with even the most advanced countries not immune to it, he said,urging people to help his government save the state.
The Chief Minister expressed happiness over the seamlesscompletion of wheat procurement amid the Covid challenges, lauding the hardworking farmers of the state for this achievement. Compared with 129 lakh MTlast year, a total of 132 lakh MT wheat had been procured this year, he said,adding that this had resulted in earnings to the tune of Rs 26000 crore for thefarmers, as against Rs. 24,600 crore last year.
“We have won this battle but the pandemic threatcontinues,” he said, lamenting that despite 14 months having passed since theoutbreak, some people are still not taking the pandemic seriously.
Giving figures, he disclosed that Punjab has so far had4.75 lakh plus cases, with Thursday’s 24-hour case load at 8484. While thetotal deaths stood at 11297, the state had lost 184 lives to Covid yesterday,he added. As of date, there are 9619 patients on Oxygen and 429 on ventilatorsupport.