New Delhi:
Opining that lockdown is no solution to COVID-19, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Saturday urged residents to celebrate Holi at home and warned that action will be taken against those who celebrate Holi in public. He said that the Delhi government is creating various teams in order to implement the measures with regard to restrictions on public gatherings at Holi.
“The government is creating various teams in order to implement the measures with regard to restrictions on public gatherings at Holi…These festivals would come next year as well wherein one could celebrate it publicly. When 50 people meet and come in contact, out of these even if 2 are positive, the rest would test positive too. Such events must be avoided. DMs and Police are creating District wise teams. Legal action would be taken against violators,” Jain asserted.
He said, “In Delhi, on Friday there were 1534 positive cases and the positivity has remained 1.8%. The positivity from the past 2-3 days has been 1.75% and the active number of cases have also increased. In order to stop this, we have increased the rate of testing with around 85,000-90,000 tests being conducted each day. This is 5 times more than the country’s average testing. Isolation and contact tracing is also being done i.e. 30-40 people being traced for each Covid-positive patient in order to contain it as fast as possible.”
Further he said that around 80 percent of beds are unoccupied, however, in the case of requirement, the government would definitely increase the number of beds.
“Earlier in Delhi, the compliance (of rules) was really good so the number of cases had reduced drastically but from the past 10-15 days it has been felt that the compliance has decreased for which we are trying to adopt strict measures and appealing to the citizens to comply to the rules, the most important of them being wearing of masks in public places due to which its spread can be contained. I would like to appeal to the citizens, that even though more than 10 lakh people have been vaccinated in Delhi, they too should wear masks in public,” asserted the Delhi Health Minister.
Further he said, “We have started random testing at railway stations and airports. Delhi is the nation’s capital from where people sure do travel and there have been cases, for instance, where a person travelled from Delhi to Punjab or Maharashtra and while coming back was tested positive. So, such cases have been coming to the forefront.”
-From 1st April people of age above 45 will get vaccines: Jain-
Jain said, “From 1st April, vaccination of people of age 45 and more will get vaccines. The problem we were facing earlier was that people who might not necessarily be tech-savvy were not able to register for the vaccine and even after registration; some are not able to visit the hospital at the assigned date due to some other preoccupations. The Government has provided a window from 3 PM- 9 PM where one can avail the vaccine without registration. The earlier timing was 9 AM- 5 PM which has been extended to 9 PM i.e. 12 hours. ”
