For Covid curfew relaxations, active case criteria revised to 500

Ghaziabad: The Uttar Pradesh government has revised the curfew relaxation criteria based on active Covid-19 cases to 500 from 600 cases earlier

Ghaziabad: The Uttar Pradesh government has revised the curfew relaxation criteria based on active Covid-19 cases to 500 from 600 cases earlier.

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The latest order issued by UP chief secretary RK Tiwari on Saturday also said that districts where the number of active cases go over 500, the relaxations given under the partial Covid curfew will be withdrawn.

According to the state’s health bulletin, all the 75 districts in UP had active cases below 500 till June 19, with Ghaziabad having 93 and Gautam Budh Nagar 133 such cases. The last time both the districts went below the 600 active cases was on June 6 and the trend continues thereafter.

“With more relaxations coming in from June 21, we are keeping special focus in areas having high population density. Besides, we are regularly conducting about 12,000 vaccinations per day, and it will be scaled up from July 1. For a positive case, we are tracing 30-35 contacts, and testing has been intensified in rural areas,” said Dr NK Gupta, chief medical officer, Ghaziabad.

“We were expecting that cases will increase with mixing of population when curfew was relaxed from June 7 onwards. But we have only few cases coming in on a daily basis which is a positive sign,” he added.

Meanwhile, experts said that the active case criteria should have been based on density of population and demography of the districts. “Since Ghaziabad and GB Nagar are in close proximity to Delhi, rise in cases in the national capital also affects the number of cases in the two districts. Further, the officials must monitor mixing of population as curfew conditions get more relaxed now,” said Dr VB Jindal, former president of Indian Medical Association (Ghaziabad).

Recently, Randeep Guleria, director of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, reportedly warned against the third wave of Covid-19 and said that it could strike the country in the next six to eight weeks.

“Ideally, the current period till the arrival of any likely third wave should be used to upgrade health infrastructure, and the heightened enforcement is need of the hour. If possible, the criteria of active cases should also be reduced to 250-300 cases to make people conscious about the need to follow Covid protocols. Otherwise, it is generally seen that people throw caution to wind once cases decline,” said Dr Ashish Agarwal, president of IMA (Ghaziabad).

In its order, the UP government has directed that activities, outside the containment zones, like opening of markets will now be allowed from 7am to 9pm from earlier 7am to 7pm, but decided against opening of cinema halls, stadiums, swimming pools, and gyms, till further orders.

The order added that the relaxations will be for five days in a week with weekend closure continuing on Saturday and Sunday, besides the night curfew will remain in place from 9pm to 7am.