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Covid-19 cases, positivity rate shoot up after Durga puja in West Bengal
A member of the expert committee set up in 2020 to advise chief minister Mamata Banerjee on pandemic-related matters said next two weeks will be very crucial as Covid-19 cases were expected to rise following Durga puja festivities
Fresh Covid-19 cases have shown an increasing trend in the past five days in West Bengal along with the positivity rate and experts are blaming it on the rampant violations of Covid-19 containment norms amid huge public gatherings during the Durga puja celebrations earlier this month.
The night curfew from 11 pm to 5 am, which was lifted for 10 days during the Durga puja, will be reimposed from Thursday, a senior official of the state government said.
On October 16, 443 new Covid cases were recorded but the number almost doubled over the last five days to reach 867 new cases on October 20. The puja ended on October 15. Similarly, the positivity rate rose from 1.6% on August 20 to 1.9% by September 20 and to 2.4% on October 20.
“Even though the puja was held last week, the shopping spree and festivity started much earlier. During the puja days, there were huge gatherings outside pandals and people from Kolkata and its outskirts hit the streets in thousands. Covid-19 protocols were rampantly violated,” said Dr Manas Gumta, general secretary of the Association of Health Service Doctors in the state.
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Durga puja, the biggest festival in West Bengal, spanned over five days between October 11 and 15 this year, but the festivity started much earlier and continued till October 17.
Even though barricades were put up to implement the Calcutta high court ‘s order banning the entry of visitors inside puja pandals, devotees were seen gathering unchecked in large numbers on the other side of the barricades at the pandals.
In one instance, the police had to stop the entry of visitors at one pandal in Salt Lake. The pandal, which was built resembling the iconic Burj Khalifa, was a major crowd puller this year. The Eastern Railway too had to cancel around 13 pairs of trains to stop people from coming to Kolkata for pandal hopping on the puja days.
“The next two weeks will be very crucial as [Covid-19] cases are expected to rise,” said Sukumar Mukherjee, member of the expert committee set up in 2020 to advice chief minister Mamata Banerjee on pandemic-related matters.
The maximum number of Covid-19 cases were recorded on October 22 last year during the first wave of the infection when 4,157 people turned positive. October 22 was the first day of Durga Puja last year.
The state registered the peak of the second wave on May 14 this year just after the assembly elections ended. The daily count had then shot up to 20,846. In both cases health experts blamed huge public gatherings without caring for safety norms.
The state health department has now started to ramp up testing, which had dropped during the festive season.
“The number of RT-PCR tests had dropped to almost half during the puja. We have started increasing it. The night curfew would be imposed again from Thursday. While 39,661 tests were done on October 1, the number of tests dropped to around 21,217 on October 15. On October 20 we conducted 35,673 tests and this will be increased further,” said a senior official of the state health department.
