Mumbai: Days after the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maharashtra government announced night curfew and weekend lockdown in the state in a bid to curb the growing numbers of COVID-19 cases, experts have opined that congestion in Mumbai local trains and other gatherings need to be stopped to bring the situation under control. Speaking to a leading portal, doctors and epidemiologists have asserted that the partial lockdown will have no major impact if gatherings are not stopped.
Post-8pm, local trains shouldn’t run at all probably or with lesser frequency. The curbs during the daytime have to be enforced strictly if we want to see any results,” infectious disease expert Dr Om Srivastava told Times of India, pitching for the curtailment of local train timings. Earlier also several experts had attributed the rise in COVID-19 cases to the resumption of the local train services. “One of the reasons behind rising coronavirus cases in Maharashtra is the resumption of local train services for the general public”, Corona Task Force member Dr. Shashank Joshi had said.
Notably, the local train services returned to full services for the general public from Feb 2, 2021 after a gap of 10 months. Since then the there has been a spike in new coronavirus cases in Maharashtra. A few days back, Mayor Kishori Pednekar had hinted at halting local train services for common people, in a bid to flatten the corona curve. She had said, “The entry of passengers other than essential service staff may be stopped once again in local trains”.
Besides, the Maharashtra government has also time and again warned people that it will impose more restrictions if commuters don’t follow Coronavirus guidelines properly. Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope had asked commuters to abide by the rules in view of the pandemic However, if in the next couple of days, people are witnessed flouting the rules then tough decisions have to be taken, especially with regards to the Mumbai locals, he had said.