Vadodara: Fears of coronavirus rearing its ugly head during the Diwali frenzy seems to be partly true with people throwing caution to the wind while milling around the chock-a-block markets.
While the city and district touched a peak with 135 cases on September 19, the rate of decline was encouraging till October 24 with only 95 cases being reported. However, what’s not encouraging is the fact that the number is maintaining its status quo and not dipping further. The decrease has slowed down significantly and the number stays steady around 90.
Sources said that a major reason for this was shoppers who have cleanly forgotten the Covid drills like masks and social distancing. A veteran in community medicine feared that there might be another spike a few days after the Diwali and Bestu Varsh festivities got over.
“There is a strong possibility that the condition in Rajkot worsened a few days after Janmashtami. The festival is celebrated with fervour in entire Saurashtra. Cases from district around Rajkot may have reached the city leading to sharp rise in bed occupancy,” he said.
The festival season will also have a lot of travelling with either revellers heading home or heading for holidays with their families. This also increases the chances of transmission of the disease. An official said that even he was surprised that the numbers were staying between 90 and 95. “While this is not alarming as we have sufficient treatment facilities and a good discharge facilities, we had expected the graph to dip further,” he said.