The district administration has directed private hospitals to enhance the bed capacity and defer elective surgeries for the time being to ensure bed availability to critical Covid-19 patients
As Covid-19 cases surge across the country, Punjab's Ludhiana district administration has imposed a night curfew between 9 pm and 5 am to curb the spread of the virus.
"We have imposed night curfew between 9 pm to 5 am till indefinite period. We will do a review later but now it is for an indefinite period. Night curfews are intended to discourage unnecessary gatherings at night," informed Ludhiana Deputy Commissioner, Varinder Sharma.
"For the last two weeks, the number of cases has increased quite much. Earlier, we used to do 4,000 tests with about a 1% positivity rate, now it has gone up to 5-6%. The average number of deaths per week was seven, now it is 25-30. This is a cause of worry," Sharma said.
He further added that the consistent rise in the number of hospitalizations is also worrisome.
"At present, we have 377 hospitalised patients, which was 27 two weeks ago. More and more younger people are being hospitalised and also from far-flung places, not just from the cities," he said.
"We are going to hold a meeting with big hospitals today and will increase the number of beds in them," he added.
The district administration has directed private hospitals to enhance the bed capacity and defer elective surgeries for the time being to ensure bed availability to critical Covid-19 patients, reported news agency ANI.
As per a statement, Deputy Commissioner Varinder Kumar Sharma and Commissioner of Police Rakesh Agrawal said that there is an immediate need to increase the bed capacity to deal with the second wave by ensuring quality treatment to the patients and reducing mortality.
In a meeting with private health institutions, the Deputy Commissioner and Commissioner of Police said that the next fortnight is 'crucial to contain pathogen immediately'.
"The bed capacity must be increased immediately as equal it was earlier to ensure every patient gets bed and best possible care. The priority is to take care of the old and vulnerable population with co-morbidities," the statement quoted the district administers.
They also appealed to the people to strictly adhere to masking, social distancing, and washing hands frequently.
Sharma on Friday also urged the people to strictly comply with Covid-19 appropriate behaviour, mask-wearing, and follow social distancing.
" I also appeal to the public to get vaccinated. The central and state governments have spent crores of money to build the infrastructure. We have to trust science. I have already had two jabs, we are fine," he added.
Meanwhile, India has reported 39,726 fresh Covid-19 cases, 20,654 recoveries and 154 deaths in the last 24 hours, as per the Union Health Ministry.
As many as 3,93,39,817 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine had been administered till 8 am on Friday in what is billed as the largest vaccination drive in the world.
With inputs from agencies.
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