Punjab CM Amarinder Singh extends COVID-19 curbs till April 10

As Covid19 cases and deaths continue to rise in Punjab with the UK strain emerging the most prevalent Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Tuesday ordered extension of curbs till April 10 while directing the Health Department to increase the number of vaccination sites to target priority categories on an urgent basisReviewing the Covid situation with the Chief Secretary and other top officials he said all restrictions that were in place till March 31 will now remain in force till April 10 after which they would be again reviewedThe Chief Minister also ordered the launch of a vaccination drive in the prisons in the wake of 40 women in Patialas Nabha Open Jail testing positiveExpressing grave concern over the situation he asked Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan to issue necessary directions for carrying out testing and vaccination in busy market areas and other crowded placesAll Deputy Commissioners and Civil Surgeons were asked to identify places such as police lines colleges and universities big industrial units bus stands and railway stations etc where mobile Covid vaccination centres can be set up to ramp up vaccinationAll eligible government employees and other categories which he had requested for inclusion in vaccine coverage such as judges and teachers should be facilitated in getting vaccination to the extent of being eligible on account of being over 45 years of age the Chief Minister saidHe directed pooling of resources available in districts with high number of cases for effective management of the pandemic and vaccination uptakeNotably the latest data shows the UK strain of the virus to be the most prevalent in the stateWhile 326 of the 401 Covid positive samples sent initially to the NCDC for genome sequencing were found positive for the UK variant so did 85 of the 95 samples sent to the IGIBThe Principal Secretary Health and Family Welfare shared the updated status of the pandemic and the status of vaccination of the eligible categories of beneficiariesThe meeting was informed that the positive cases and deaths were rising rapidly in some of the districts with projections showing steep rise in the number of cases and a peak around April 6The number would be decreasing by mid or late May as per the estimates which suggest that Jalandhar Ludhiana Patiala Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar Hoshiarpur and Kapurthala are expected to contribute more cases and positivity is likely to be high in the younger population of 40 years of age or lessDGP Dinkar Gupta apprised that since the last meeting when the decision to fine protocol offenders along with RTPCR testing was taken 90360 persons had been challaned and tested for Covid He requested a special vaccination drive in police linesThe Chief Minister also directed that strict monitoring of home isolation patients should be done and they should be transferred to the appropriate level of healthcare facilities if neededAll districts have also been asked to strengthen their teams so that the data entry of Covid sampling and transportation of samples to the designated lab takes minimum time and the result is made available within 24 hoursOn the vaccination front the Chief Minister directed that any photo identity card shall be sufficient to approve the vaccination of eligible beneficiariesAll districts have been ordered to increase the number of vaccination centres by including all health facilities up to the subcentre level dispensaries ayurvedic and homoeopathic healthcare facilities and private empanelled hospitalsWhile 45 plus age group shall be slated for vaccination from April 1 all districts shall ensure that all facilities get started at vaccination centres as early as possible and latest by March 31 with a view to understand the infrastructural bottlenecks if any so that there is smooth increase in the number of vaccination centres and the beneficiaries get hasslefree vaccination experienceKK Talwar Advisor Health to the state government suggested that routine nonCovid treatment in some of the selected private hospitals may be deferred by twofour weeks and more ambulance be made available to the district hospitals where there are no medical collegesThe Chief Minister was also assured that the Health Department is ready to increase RTPCR testing to 35000 tests per dayThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever