With the count of the coronavirus positive cases crossing 500-mark on Tuesday, the Centre asked all the States to further enhance surveillance to trace infected people to break the transmission chain across India and ensure funds for setting up of additional medical facilities like hospitals, clinical laboratories and isolation wards to combat with the endemic. More States and districts also announced imposition of curfew to strictly enforce “social distancing”.
As per the Government data, 519 people in India have tested positive for Covid-19 so far, with 40 cured and 9 deaths, with an addition of 12 new cases on Tuesday. Eleven people have died due to the contagious infection, which originated in Wuhan city of Hubei province in China over three months ago. Over 17,100 people have been killed and almost four lakh are infected worldwide.
In a letter to all the Chief Secretaries of the States, Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba asked them to “suitably supplement” State and district surveillance teams as well as the Rapid Response Teams (RRT) to meet any urgency.
“It is absolutely essential that surveillance and contact tracing of all positive cases is taken up and no suspected or high risk person is left out. It is important that while these tasks are being monitored at the State level by the State Health Secretaries, this activity is directly and regularly monitored at the district level by the district magistrates, involving the official machinery available in the district,” Gauba said.
The Centre during a video conference had asked the State Governments on Sunday to identify and earmark hospitals dedicated for management of Covid-19 cases. Gauba asked the State officials to upload the details of both the surveillance measures and the hospitals on the health online portal of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
All violations should be met with legal action, the Cabinet Secretary told the States and UTs.
The State Governments have been conveyed that public gatherings could lead to escalation of the prevailing situation as so far nearly 500 positive cases have been reported from different parts of the country. Of the total cases, 41 are foreign nationals and the eleven deaths reported so far, the Health Ministry said.
Seven deaths were earlier reported from Maharashtra (two), Bihar, Karnataka, Delhi, Gujarat and Punjab.
Thirty-seven people have been cured/discharged/migrated, according to the official data.
“The Central Government has asked all the State Governments to deploy fiscal resources for establishing additional medical facilities such as hospitals, clinical labs, isolation wards, expanding and upgrading existing facilities to combat the challenge posed by COVID19,” an official statement said.
These facilities need to be well equipped with ventilators, personal protective equipment (PPEs), masks and drugs to treat the patients, it said.
Meanwhile, to impose the lockdown strictly, the authorities are tightening screw against the lockdown violators. Thousands of people were booked for violating the norms and issued warnings of arrest with jail terms up to a year if the violations continued. In States like Punjab,Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh, police circulated pictures of violators on social media with messages such as they were “against the society as they will not stay at home.”
The police confiscated vehicles people found violating the norms in States including Haryana and Rajasthan. In some cases police forced the violators to do sit-ups 10 to 20 times as punishments for coming out of their homes. Police also clicked pictures of violators. Barricades were put up across places under lockdown as police checked whether people out of their homes had genuine reasons to do so.
As per data provided by the States, 232 FIRs have been registered and 111 people have been arrested for violating the curfew imposed in Punjab.
Kolkata Police have arrested 1003 people for deliberate violation of “Total Safety Restrictions”.
The Gujarat police has registered 238 cases of breach of lockdown and 426 people in the last 24 hours for violating lockdown rules. In Ghaziabad, 110 FIRs registered against 494 people for violating lockdown.
In Mumbai and Ahmedabad, police have also asked the violators to push up 10 to 20 times on roads in presence of media. Taking a strict action against the lockdown violators, Uttarakhand Police on Tuesday caught people venturing out on streets of Karanprayag city here and clicked their pictures with a pamphlet reading -- “I am enemy of society, I won’t stay inside my home, I want to spread coronavirus.” To teach them a lesson, police personnel handed them a pamphlet which states, “I am enemy of society, I won’t stay inside my home, I want to spread coronavirus”, and posted it on social media.
In West Bengal, the police in Cooch Behar is seen beating up a person found to be roaming in the streets without any credible reason. The police also punctured the tyres of e-rickshaws being driven in the city amid the state-wide lockdown imposed by the government including rural and urban areas to control the spread of COVID-19.