Amarinder Singh expressed concern over the high death rate due to Covid in Punjab. (FILE)
Chandigarh:
The Punjab government may go for stricter curbs if the Covid situation in the state doesn’t improve by next week, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said on Wednesday. The Chief Minister said a decision on the same will be taken after a review of the situation in the state on April 8.
“I will watch things for a week, and then if there is no improvement, we may have to go for stricter curbs,” he said.
Amarinder Singh’s warning comes a day after he announced curbs to tackle coronavirus even as the state is grappling with a surge in the number of cases and fatalities.
A decision on further curbs may be taken if the Covid spread continues unchecked, the Chief Minister said, at a virtual review meeting with top health, administrative and police officials.
Mr Singh also pointed out that his government has put severe restrictions on social gatherings and closed all educational institutions, with night curfews imposed from 9 pm to 5 am in severely affected 11 districts.
Amarinder Singh, underlining the need for aggressive vaccination, also directed officials to reach out to eligible people at the Mohalla level in the worst affected districts to motivate people to get inoculated.
The Chief Minister also expressed concern over the high death rate due to Covid in Punjab and directed the administration to develop a robust mechanism to get people with co-morbidities to the hospital at the earliest.
Dr KK Talwar, head of the state’s expert committee on COVID-19, said the high death rate was due to patients not coming to hospitals in time and the rate of co-morbidities also being high in the state. He also said that more enforcement of restrictions was needed in the urban areas, which were reporting higher cases.
Punjab has been witnessing a surge in the infections with more than 2,000 new cases being reported daily. It is among eight states which account for nearly 85 per cent of the 53,480 COVID-19 cases registered in the country in the last 24 hours, the health ministry informed.
There is also a rise in the number of fatalities due to the disease in Punjab.
On Tuesday, 65 COVID-19 deaths were reported in the state.