Amid declining Covid cases and deaths, Punjab chief minister (CM) Captain Amarinder Singh on Thursday ordered lifting of Sunday lockdown and night curfew in Punjab, while directing the director general of police (DGP) to strictly enforce wearing of masks and other safety norms.
The CM announced relaxations such as increasing the limit for marriage functions and funerals to 100, easing the limit of three persons in a car and 50% capacity in buses, subject to the condition of windows being open.
Captain Amarinder directed DGP Dinkar Gupta to ensure strict adherence to Covid protocols and said that there should be no laxity, especially in view of the ongoing paddy procurement operations and the forthcoming festival season.
On the issue of reopening of schools and educational institutions, which the Centre has left to the states to decide post October 15 under Unlock 5.0, the final decision will be announced after due deliberations between the Home Secretary and the Education Department.
During a virtual meeting to review the Covid situation, the CM said the restrictions imposed earlier by the state government helped. However, he expressed concern over the increasing cases in rural areas, even though numbers in cities/towns were going down.
In a brief presentation earlier, state’s expert health committee head Dr KK Talwar said the positivity rate in the state had come down from 10.85% on September 14 to 5.12% on September 28.
The number of deaths and patients on ventilators had also shown a decline during this period, he said. The state’s Covid death rate currently stands at 2.9%, with deaths per million at 112.5%. The recovery rate has gone up to 82.1%.
Punjab has overall managed the pandemic better and has been aggressive in contact tracing and has till now traced 7.6 contacts of each Corona positive patient. In a press communiqué issued, Punjab health minister Balbir Singh Sidhu said that Punjab is far ahead from Himachal, Bihar and many states in terms of contact tracing.
