E-Paper
Pune rural accounts for 60% Covid cases in district; positivity rate stays above state average
A total of over 1,300 villages and 16 municipal councils account for the Pune rural population of over 52 lakh
The villages and municipal councils in rural Pune have been contributing to over 60 per cent of the district’s daily caseload (from July 24 to July 30) which is now driving up the district’s overall Covid-19 count.
The positivity rate currently stands above six per cent which is above the state average.
A total of over 1,300 villages and 16 municipal councils account for the Pune rural population of over 52 lakh.
With the sowing season round the corner movement of farmers and villagers remains difficult to control. Although rural Pune continues to remain under Level four restrictions with added restrictions than the city on paper, on the ground the movement of people remains undeterred.
During the weekly Covid-19 review meeting on Friday, deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar said that while the city has a lower positivity rate despite more relaxations as compared to the villages, people living in rural Pune are found to floating Covid-19 appropriate behaviour.
He said, “People in the villages are not wearing face masks which is leading to an upsurge in the daily new cases and active cases in the villages. Villagers are not strictly following mandatory regulations as basic as wearing a mask.”
Dr Abhishek Lunawat, who runs his private hospital, Anand hospital, in Shirur taluka, said, “When people come to us with flu-like symptoms and then we recommend them to undergo Covid-19 tests, they simply decline it and change the doctor. People give excuses including that they got wet in the rains and caught a cold or drank cold water but deny to undergo tests.”
“During the weekly market, people ignore all Covid-19 appropriate behaviour and crowd the markets. People remove their masks while talking to someone even in our hospitals. Although there is a huge crowd for vaccination, villagers do not observe precautions as much as they should,” he said.
However, the rural administration states that the rise in the numbers is because of better reporting and because of the highly susceptible population in the rural areas.
Ayush Prasad, chief executive officer of the Pune Zilla Parishad, said, “The population which was not exposed earlier is now being infected. The fear factor is also proportional to the number of new cases being reported.”
“We can also see that there is some non-compliance from the people regards wearing masks or social distancing. However, the rural police are doing their job to penalise people. We have penalised ten times more than the number of people penalised in the Pimpri-Chinchwad,” he said.
“Another reason why Pune rural is reporting more cases is because of the concentrated testing that is happening in the hotspots where we are bound to find more cases. Instead of doing random testing, we are detecting more cases from the hotspots so that there could be early isolation and early treatment,” he said.
