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Virus spike no bar: Visitors at India Gate throw precaution to the wind
Many of the people who came out to India Gate on Friday, were seen not wearing masks, and camping on the lawns in close proximity and said the rain and improvement in temperature had prompted the outing.
Thousands gathered at the lawns of the India Gate in Central Delhi on Friday, flouting all social distancing and other Covid-19 preventive norms, after the temperature in the city dipped by a few degrees following a spell of rainfall.
Many of the people who came out to India Gate on Friday, were seen not wearing masks, and camping on the lawns in close proximity and said the rain and improvement in temperature had prompted the outing.
Delhi on Friday reported 431 new coronavirus infections, the highest single-day increase in cases in over two months, or since January 9. On Wednesday, 409 new Covid-19 cases were reported in the national capital.
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The capital received a spell of rain, accompanied by thunderstorm, which brought respite from the rising temperatures that have been recorded in the last two months.
From 35.2 degrees Celsius recorded on Thursday — the highest in the season so far — the maximum temperatures fell to 30.7 degrees Celsius on Friday. Strong winds continued to blow throughout the evening hours.
Deputy commissioner of police (New Delhi range), Eish Singhal said, “We are carrying out enforcement of social distancing at India Gate. We are also issuing challans and using public service announcements to prevent crowding.”
On Friday, while the area around India Gate remained out-of-bounds for the general — it has been shut since the Covid-19 lockdown was enforced last year — the lawns leading to the monument packed up pretty quickly as the weather improved.
Khushboo Rathi, who was seen at the India Gate with her family, said that she had brought her kids for an outing ahead of the weekend since the weather had become pleasant.
“We had come just to spend some time here, get some ice cream for the kids. We are ensuring that we are all wearing our masks,” Rathi said.
Rakesh Jha, another visitor who had come with his friends, said, “We all thought of spending some time together. There was a phase in Delhi when the daily Covid cases being reported was in the thousands. Now, we are seeing only a few hundred cases daily. No one knows how long the pandemic is expected to last; we will have to learn to live with it now.”
Experts, however, cautioned that with the recent spike in number of cases, residents and authorities will have to ensure that guards are not lowered.
“We have seen what has happened to the other countries, the moment restrictions were relaxed there — cases saw a steep spike. A pandemic never goes away overnight and to prevent it from claiming more lives, we need to adopt maximum precautions. For the last two months, we had started witnessing a drop in the number of consultation calls for coronavirus symptoms. But we are seeing that these calls have started rising again,” Dr Vikas Maurya, head of the department of pulmonology at Fortis hospital, Shalimar Bagh.
Dr Maurya also said that following social distancing norms was all the more essential now to ensure the effectiveness of the ongoing vaccination drive.
“Currently, the vulnerable groups have started receiving their first doses of the vaccine shots. It is imperative that we take the utmost care during this time so that the cases do not start rising again,” he said.
