Even as Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has appealed to the people to remain vigilant for next two months due to a new variant of coronavirus that is wreaking havoc in some Western countries, many ‘Covidiots’ (Take Covid-19 add idiot to it) are still ignoring the warnings about public health and safety, particularly in capital city Bhubaneswar, as if the pandemic is over.
To make matters worse, as the daily Covid caseload have declined in the city, the agencies like the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the Commissionerate police which are responsible for enforcing the Covid-19 safety guidelines like social distancing and masking, have dropped their guard and virtually stopped taking a public health emergency like the pandemic seriously.
No more violators are being penalised for not wearing masks or flouting social distancing norms.
So, it is no surprise that the Covidiots are flouting the health advisories and doing things they have been warned about like avoid large gatherings, wearing a mask at public places and maintaining a distance of six metre from each other, perhaps thinking that what is happening to others, is not going to affect them.Besides, the Covidiots, the quarantine runaways, the people who hide their travel histories from the authorities so as to avoid self-quarantine and symptomatic individuals who are wary of being tested are not fully aware about the seriousness of the problem and its deadly impact.
Experts feel that a few 'superspreader' events and increased mobility can again change the course of the virus in few weeks and it can spread like wildfire.
This is not the time for containment or complacence yet till the majority of the population gets vaccinated. “So keep the mask on, wash the hands and stay away from crowded places,” they added.