With electioneering moving up a gear, incidents of COVID-19 protocol violation in public places are on the increase, forcing the police to adopt stringent legal measures. The Kozhikode rural area is now witnessing the highest number of such violations, where the police have started taking spot action including the impounding of crowded vehicles.
The reckless violations, which are likely to pose a threat to public health, mostly take place during outdoor campaigns of political parties in the presence of senior leaders. No hand-washing facilities or sanitisation arrangements are made ahead of election conventions.
“Even senior citizens are moving around with no concern over the spread of the pandemic. Political parties are least bothered about overcrowded gatherings in the midst of their high-pitched campaigns,” says C. Baburaj, a health worker from Balussery. He points out that the vigilance shown during the local body elections is hardly visible now.
Accredited Social Health Activists from panchayats say that there should be better crowd control mechanisms during the arrival of prominent campaigners in constituencies.
The district administration’s directive to keep a proper record of visitors to malls, shopping centres and venues of public events has already been thrown to the wind in the absence of a checking mechanism. Thermal scanning is available only in a few shops. Bus operators are also seemingly ignorant of the existing regulations with the increasing rush of passengers.
A police official from Vadakara said the declining number of COVID-19 positive cases reported by the Health Department was found to be a major reason for overlooking the safety protocol with a false sense of protection.
“The majority of those booked for safety rule violations had come out with such responses. There should be proper awareness drives to sensitise people that the declining number of positive cases is hardly indicating a safe atmosphere around,” he said.
