Punjab has witnessed 380 percent increase in its COVID-19 tally in the past five days — registering a rise in daily count from 46 on Monday to 221 on Friday. However, the state has, so far, reported just a single case of Omicron variant, that too has been discharged after testing negative.
Despite an increase in the number of cases and the threat of possible third wave looming large over the poll-bound state, the State Government is busy holding large rallies and gatherings, instead of reviewing the situation and imposing restrictions. The testing and sampling also continues to be low, despite the state having the facility of conducting over 50,000 tests daily.
The state on Friday reported 221 new cases at the positivity rate of 1.42 percent, pushing the COVID-19 tally to 6,04,810, of which 767 are active cases. No new case was reported from six districts, with maximum 71 cases (at 5.34 percent positivity rate) reported from Patiala followed by 37 from Pathankot 37 (4.89 percent), 25 from SAS Nagar (Mohali) at a positivity rate of 1.38 percent, among others.
On December 27, the state reported 46 positive cases, which jumped up to 51 on December 28, 100 the next day, and to 167 on December 30.
All the political parties are engaged in holding big gatherings, rallies attracting large crowds who turn up without wearing masks or violating all norms of social distancing.
Even as AAP supremo and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has imposed night curfew in the national capital, he has been holding rallies and public meetings, even in closed halls, in Punjab. On Friday, he led the party’s Shanti Yatra in Patiala where thousands turn up.
A day before, the state government mobilized about 70,000 mid-day meal and ASHA workers in Chamkaur Sahib for an event to be addressed by Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi. The event, organised to make announcements for the mid-day meal and ASHA workers, was also attended by Deputy Chief Minister OP Soni — who is also handling the Health portfolio.
Over the past few months, the state has decreased the testing and sampling, which could also be the possible reason for low numbers. With the advent of the new Omicron variant, the state has increased its testing from nearly 10,000 tests, now to 15,000-plus — which is still less as compared to its capacity.
It has been observed that the districts, where testing in high, have been reporting more cases as compared to those where testing is low.
On Friday, 15,728 samples were collected, while 15,553 tests were conducted on the day. Contrary to this, the Government had earlier claimed that the testing would be ramped up to 40,000 tests per day to deal with the Omicron variant.
Even as the Health Department has been monitoring the situation, the full-fledged review meeting on COVID-19 situation was held during the tenure of Capt Amarinder Singh. After the change of guard in September, no review meeting, where strategy was devised with the health experts to control the situation, was held.
Deputy Chief Minister-cum-Health and Family Welfare Minister Soni had held some meetings, but the instructions issued during the same have yet to be implemented at the ground level.
30 TESTED POSITIVE IN THAPAR IN PAST 3 DAYS
A total of 12 students of Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology have been tested positive on Friday. With this, total 30 students of the Institute have been tested positive over the past three days. The number is expected to go high as the reports of hundreds of students are still awaited. Alarmed, the administration has converted one of the hostel into a containment zone. Sources maintained that the state health department would conduct mass testing on the university campus. Meanwhile, the Health Department has already sent the samples of positive students to the Genome Sequencing Lab at Government Medical College, Patiala, to ascertain the new strain.