6 cases in city; no govt nod yet for timing change

Nagpur: The city registered only 6 Covid cases on Sunday. The last time this low number was recorded was 400 days ago. With 6,883 tests conducted, the daily test positivity rate (TPR) was 0.09%.
Yet, restrictions will continue in the city from Monday as the state government is yet to take any decision on the District Disaster Management Authority’s (DDMA) seeking relaxations up to 8 pm instead of 4 pm.
This is for the second time that the cases are in single digit during the peak times of the first and second wave. On June 19, eight had tested positive.
As per Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) data, the last time six tested positive was on on June 6, 2020. Then, only 84 were tested and the TPR was 7.14%.
The district had 16 cases from 8,265 tests (0.19% TPR). Nine were from rural (1,382 tests, 0.65%). One was from another district.
The district’s weekly TPR has continued to be below 1%. Citing 0.46% weekly TPR of the district in the week ending July 8, 0.68% occupancy of oxygen beds and 150 active cases on July 4, the president of DDMA and collector had wanted closure timings of essential and non-essentials to 8pm and restaurants to 10pm. Permission was also sought for resumption of offline meetings of various bodies with 50% capacity. TOI was the first to report about the proposal on July 10.
The only change in restrictions from Monday is takeaways/parcels from restaurants allowed after 4pm and outdoor sports activities getting an additional slot from 6pm to 9pm.
Infectious disease specialist Dr Nitin Shinde told TOI that it is not necessary that cases will increase once restrictions are lifted. “Waves have a pattern. A lot depends on the immune population, vaccination coverage and development of variant. All third waves in the world have typically arrived after four to five months of the second wave. The prevailing restrictions can be eased to some extent,” he said.