In the midst of rising Covid cases, the government of Delhi has made wearing of face mask/cover in all public places mandatory.
Contents
Exemption
Those caught flouting the rules will be fined Rs 500.
Persons travelling together in private four-wheeler vehicles are exempt from this fine.
However this exemption is not applicable to taxis or app-based cabs.
Mandate back after period of relaxation
The fine amount on those not wearing masks was slashed in February from Rs 2,000 to Rs 500.
The penalty was lifted entirely on March 31 with waning cases.
This was reimposed in April amid a fresh spike, but enforcement was slackened.
The national capital has seen an upward trend in daily Covid cases over the last week, along with the number of deaths.
New surge
32 deaths have been recorded so far in August, an over two-fold rise as against the last 10 days of July when 14 people had died.
As per the latest data, Delhi had reported 2146 fresh covid cases in last 24 hours, with positivity rates of 17.83%.
520 covid positive patients in Delhi are admitted in hospitals with bed occupancy rate of 5.7%.
Enforcement teams deployed
The South Delhi district magistrate has deployed three teams in its sub-divisions of Hauz Khas, Mehrauli and Saket to enforce the latest order.
They will be supervised by tehsildars from the sub-divisions concerned who will monitor the exercise and report on a daily basis the number of challans issued.
Each team will comprise 15 civil defence volunteers besides the district officials to visit public places such as markets.
They have set up special camps for administering the third dose of the vaccine.
Doctors’ take
Richa Sareen, senior consultant, Pulmonology, Fortis Hospital, Vasant Kunj said that though the majority of the recent cases have been mild, there is a need to be cautious in the coming days.
Covid-appropriate behaviour must be followed to prevent an uncontrollable surge in cases.
Especially vulnerable are the elderly and those with comorbidities who need to be extra cautious, as the disease tends to be more severe in them, leading to hospitalisation, ICU admissions and sometimes death.
Need for booster doses
Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan (LNJP) Hospital MD Dr Suresh Kumar urged the people to take booster doses and follow COVID-19 protocols.
He said that cases are increasing because of the mutation of COVID and urged everyone to take precautionary vaccine doses.
However he did say that most are mild infections and most patients do not need to be admitted to the hospital.
A study conducted on a small set of samples taken from the latest cases in Delhi has found that a majority were detected with a new Omicron sub variant.
The doctors said that the new subvariant is more transmissible.
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.