Pune: Shops to stay open 9am-7pm, eatery takeaways to resume

PUNE: The 10-day total lockdown of the city ended on Thursday, bringing back into effect the earlier, more relaxed lockdown that had been extended till July 31 via a state notification issued on June 29.
Saurabh Rao, officer on special duty at the divisional commissioner’s office, told an online news conference on Thursday that the earlier lockdown would be restored in the Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad municipal corporation limits and their adjoining areas from Friday.

Among other things, shops and market places can function in non-containment zones under the P1/P2 system from 9am to 7pm, restaurants can offer takeaways, and autorickshaws, cabs and four-wheelers can ply with restricted number of occupants.
Rao said that in the four weeks between June 25 and July 21, Pune conducted around 1.17 lakh Covid-19 tests — the highest number of tests for any city or district in the country.

Rao and Pune municipal commissioner Vikram Kumar maintained that the 10-day lockdown had enabled them meet the larger objectives — identifying and isolating Covid-19 cases through aggressive testing, intensive contact tracing (8-10 contacts behind each positive case) and augmenting oxygenated, ventilator and intensive care unit beds in both government and private hospitals.
Rao said the recovery rate among Covid-19 patients in the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) limits was 59.2%. “The CFR in the PMC limits is 2.5%, which is slightly higher than India’s 2.4% and Pune district’s 2.3%, but less than Mumbai’s 5.6% and the state’s 3.8%. We still have some way to go to achieve a CFR below 1% as per the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) guidelines.”
Referring to the four-week period between June 25 and July 21, Rao said, “Pune conducted the highest tests for any city or district in the country as part of an aggressive testing and contact tracing strategy. We conducted 22,800 tests from June 25 to July 1, 25,000 from July 2 to July 8, 32,000 from July 9 to July 15 and 37,000 from July 16 to July 21. The case fatality rate (CFR) for these four weeks was 2.6%, 1.8%, 1.9% and 1.4% respectively.”
Rao said, “Based on a study of all existing factors, the PMC area is projected to end up with 27,000 active cases by the end of July and 3,000 of them will require hospitalization.”
The officers said the administration would next focus on the Peth area-wise testing of potential super-spreaders, including shopkeepers, traders, their employees and fruit and vegetable vendors. The existing contact tracing strategy looked good, they said, adding that priority was being given to the testing of high-risk contacts. Low-risk contacts can be tested between day 2 and 5.
Regarding operation of shops, Rao said, “Proposals by the traders’ bodies are under consideration and the civic, district and police officials will work out a consensus before announcing a final decision.”
One of the traders’ associations had suggested five-day operation of shops with total closure on Saturdays and Sundays. Another association was in favour of such closure on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.