Gurgaon: The city reported more than 700
Covid-19 cases for the second day in a row on Friday.
However, unlike neighbouring Delhi, Noida and Ghaziabad, which have all announced a night curfew, senior officials said there were no plans to announce similar restrictions in Gurgaon or any other part of Haryana as of now. The assessment, they said, is that steps like
night curfew are temporary measures and the spread of the pandemic could be effectively contained by strictly enforcing Covid-appropriate behaviour.
Chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, who was in Gurgaon on Friday, reiterated his earlier position against night curfew or
lockdown in reply to queries from reporters on the sidelines of the GMDA meeting that he chaired.
“We have not sent any proposal for night curfew or weekend lockdown. People need to understand the importance of
Covid behavior. We have asked MCG and police to impose penalties for not wearing masks in crowded areas,” said chief medical officer Dr Virender Yadav.
A senior Gurgaon administration official added, “If night curfew is imposed, it will severely hamper the businesses of several industries in the city. Even though Delhi and Noida have imposed night curfew, there are no such directions for Gurgaon from the state government.”
The 703 fresh cases recorded on Friday took the overall case load since the beginning of the pandemic to 68,193. A day earlier, Gurgaon had reported 741 cases, the highest single-day spike so far this year.
The health department said 567 patients recovered on Friday, taking the total number of recoveries to 63,234. The recovery rate stands at 92%. So far, 368 people in the city have succumbed to Covid, of whom 283 had comorbidities. There were no deaths on Friday.
Active cases now stand at 4,591, of whom 4,258 are in recovery at home.
“As we have over 4,000 patients in home isolation at present, our teams are monitoring each case on a daily basis. We are sending teams to check patients’ oxygen levels and also to ensure their health condition doesn’t turn critical suddenly,” the CMO said. Allaying fears about non-availability of hospital beds, the CMO said, “At present, we have adequate beds for Covid patients and we will further increase the bed capacity.”
13,000 more get vaccine
A total of 12,967 people over the age of 45 years, meanwhile, got vaccinated on Friday. As many as 210 session sites were set up in the city — 153 at government facilities and 57 at private hospitals. Meanwhile, 240 healthcare workers and 836 frontline workers also got the jab on Friday, taking their total tally to 52,089 and 34,941, respectively.
Private hospitals in the city plan to focus on creating camps at housing societies and offices to boost the vaccination drive. “Our response has been very encouraging with corporates. We have conducted four camps with 50 to 100 people coming forward for vaccination on an average. We have 10-15 more camps at offices in the pipeline. We are setting up camps at SBI, Panasonic, Airtel and Pristyn. We are also conducting camps in the community centres, societies and clubs,” said Arpita Mukherjee, vice-president (operations and head), Max Super Specialty Hospital.