Even as the daily cases has come down to 200 per day in Punjab, the state Health and Family Welfare Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu on Friday issued instructions to all Civil Surgeons to strictly implement Covid-19 appropriate behaviors and keep testing for Covid-19 at least 1000 per million population.
“To accelerate the contact tracing of Covid patients, instructions have also been issued to trace at least 20 contacts of every positive patient and get them tested as well,” he said adding that contact tracing increased from about four contacts per case to nearly 12 contacts per positive case.
Sidhu said that during the peak, Punjab used to report 2,500 to 3,000 cases per day. “Due to good containment efforts of the Punjab Government, during last two months, the number of cases have been decreasing steadily and average daily cases reported came down to about 200 per day with a recovery rate of 95 percent,” he said.
Recent few days have seen an up rise in number of COVID-19 cases in the State with 309 cases being reported on February 11, said the Minister adding that this trend indicates, COVID-19 is not over yet and we are at risk of witnessing a surge in number of cases which strictly requires the need for following COVID appropriate behaviors like social distancing, wearing of mask and hand sanitization.
Divulging about the vaccination programme, Sidhu said that so far, 2.05 lakh healthcare workers and 1.77 lakh frontline workers have been registered for COVID-19 vaccination, and about 74,286 healthcare workers and 23,085 frontline workers have been vaccinated.
The Minister said that facility of registering beneficiaries for vaccination of front line workers of Revenue and PRI departments is still open till February17. The last date or availing first dose of vaccination for HCW has been extended from February 12 to 19.
At the same time, he assured that the vaccine is safe and effective and every HCW and FLW must get vaccinated. It is for their safety and that of their families.
Expressing concern over the states where COVID-19 cases are rising, he said that Maharashtra and Kerala have constantly recorded a high number of daily cases so that the Punjab Government has taken prompt decisions to control the spread of corona virus in the State.