Ernakulam continues to witness Covid protocol violations

KOCHI: Despite the government’s campaign and the police department’s enforcement activities, people are still venturing out for no apparent reason, said police officials. While some people are not bothered to wear face masks, many others do not maintain proper distancing in the public space, they said.

Small wonder that the number of people violating the Covid protocol despite the lockdown is showing an upward trend, according to statistics available from the Rural and City police. While 2,308 cases were red under the Kerala Epidemic Disease Ordinance in the rural police limits  in the last 10 days, the city police booked 1,123 people under the same rule.

With 4,282 more testing positive for Covid-19 on Wednesday, Ernakulam topped the districts in the number of new cases. According to the data, people who come out of their homes are least concerned about maintaining social distancing or wearing face masks.

The city police have charged 3,080 people in the past 10 days with failing to maintain social distancing while the rural police booked 15,069 people. As many as 12,028 cases were registered by the rural police for not wearing masks. The city police charged 2,762 people with the same offence. Markets, grocery shops and supermarkets are the major places where such violations were noticed. 

“It’s true that some people don’t take the pandemic seriously. The violations are occurring at a time the district administration, police and health department are all working hard to reduce the number of Covid cases.

So far, we have initiated petty cases against the people but strong legal action will be taken in coming days,” said Aishwarya Dongre, DCP (law and order).  

Even after the triple lockdown was imposed, the number of violations has not decreased. According to the statistics,  people living in rural places are the biggest violators of the Covid protocol than the city residents.  

“We have deployed our force in every nook and corner to reduce the number of violations. We are collaborating with volunteers in each ward to reduce Covid cases. We have started enforcing the protocol strictly in panchayats where TPR is above 40 per cent,” said district Rural police chief K Karthick