Disregard for Covid norms behind spike: Nodal officer

Vishav Bharti

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 25

Throwing all Covid safety norms to the wind now seems to be costing dear to Punjabis as the number of cases has increased threefold in the past three weeks.

Till the January-end, the daily average number of cases in the state was between 200 and 225. Now it is nearing 600. Health officials are worried over the fact that when cases are either static or declining in the neighbouring states, Punjab has witnessed a sudden spike.

State health officials say nobody in Punjab seems to be worried about wearing mask or maintaining social distancing. “We have figured out that the main reason behind the current spurt in the number of cases is laxity towards wearing masks and social distancing shown by people in the state,” says Dr Rajesh Bhaskar, state’s nodal officer for Covid.

He says in Punjab it seems people feel that Covid threat is over. “But we should not forget that on an average, we are losing 15 lives to Covid every day,” he says. Another worry is continuous increase in active cases.

The number of active cases last month had come down to 2,000 but at present the number, the active cases have increased to 3,870.