Chandigarh, February 23 - Amid growing concern over therising Covid trend in the state, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singhon Tuesday ordered restriction on indoor gathering to 100 and outdoor to 200persons from March 1, along with strict enforcement of mask/social distancingetc, with testing to be ramped to 30000 a day.
Chairing a high-level virtual meeting to review thesituation, the Chief Minister also authorised the DCs to impose night curfew inhot spots in their districts if needed, with micro containment strategy to beadopted. He directed the Police force to ensure strict enforcement of wearingof masks, along with notification of Covid monitors by all restaurants,marriage palaces, with the the Department of Excise and Taxation to be thenodal agency for the same.
The Chief Minister said a decision on reducing occupancy incinema halls will be taken after March 1. Private offices and restaurantsshall be encouraged to display lasttests done for all employees, he added.
While directing increased testing, Captain Amarinder orderedmandatory testing of 15 contacts per positive, with monitoring to be done byCPTOs and review to be undertaken by the Health Department.
The Chief Minister also took stock of the Vaccinationstatus, underlining the need to carry out an IEC campaign to promote 100%coverage of healthcare and frontline workers. He directed the Health Departmentto plan for an strategise the roll-out of vaccine for the elderly populationand those with comorbidities.
Expressing concern over the 3.23 CFR, Captain Amarinder tooknote of the mortality audit findings that many of the deaths are happeningwithin 2 -14 days of hospitalisation. He underscored the need forcontinued supervision of protocols formanaging patients with comorbidities, especially in private facilities. Citingcases of some deaths at home, he further directed the Health Department toensure proper monitoring of home isolation cases, especially those withcomorbidities. The Fateh Kits comprisingself-monitoring instructions should positively reach all persons in homeisolation the same day that they are tested positive, he directed.
The Chief Minister asked the Health and Medical Educationdepartments to ensure that all positions for which special hiring has beenallowed are filled at the earliest.
Apprising the Chief Minister of measures taken by the PunjabPolice to enforce adherence to safety protocols, DGP Dinkar Gupta saidinstructions have been issued to field officers to strictly imposerestrictions.
Earlier, in a brief presentation, Health Secretary HussanLal informed the meeting that the districts of Amritsar, Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar,Ludhiana, Patiala, SAS Nagar and SBS Nagar had shown a spike in positivity inrecent days, triggering concerns over a possible fresh wave in the state.
On the vaccination front, he disclosed that there had so farbeen 61 cases of minor adverse events following immunisation, while 6 severeand 14 serious cases had been reported. All had since recovered, he added.
Dr KK Talwar, who is heading the state government’s expertgroup on Covid, said a detailed analysis was being done on the recent spike inpositivity rate, which suggested an increase in cases among young people. Atthe current rate, the positivity could go up to 4% in two weeks, translatinginto 800 cases per day, he said, stressing the need for urgent preventivesteps.
Chief Secretary Vinni Mahajan ruled out re-closure ofgovernment schools and said the department is taking all steps to ensure thesafety of students. Education Secretary Krishan Kumar said teachers have beendesignated nodal officers in schools to instruct students on the proper use ofmasks etc and ensure adherence to Covid appropriate behaviour. These steps havecome as significant number of cases had been reported from the recentlyreopened schools, especially in Ludhiana, with positivity rate of 3.1% andBathinda (2.9%).
So far, no new mutated variant of the Coronavirus had beenwitnessed in Punjab but new samples had been sent for testing and the resultswere expected next week, said Dr Talwar.
Dr Raj Bahadur also briefed the meeting on the prevailingsituation and the steps being taken to check the spread of Covid.