After a gap of six months, the police on Friday resumed the COVID-19 awareness campaign in Bangarupalem mandal, covering about 42 villages, mostly located in remote and forest-fringe areas.
Rise in daily tally
The villages, which registered a single-digit daily COVID tally in early January, have now started to see double-digit count.
The Bangarupalem police initiated the mobile campaign with auto-rikshaws, which would reach the not-so-easily accessible hamlets, village shandies, bus stops, temples, and the dhabas and hotels situated close to the Bengaluru national highway.
Inspector Mallikarjun Reddy said that the week-long campaign, undertaken by the Rural Organisation for Poverty Eradication Services (ROPES) with the support of Canadian NGO Children Believe, would emphasise the need for people to stick to COVID-appropriate behaviour at all times.
“Despite wide publicity on COVID etiquette, people from the rural areas continue to travel in buses and shared-autos without wearing facemasks and following physical distancing. Given the exponential rise of COVID cases, we want to implement strict norms to control the spread,” he said.
ROPES Chairman K. Dhanasekharan and Programme Director P. Sree Latha said that the mobile campaign would cover the target population of 75,000 in the mandal, which remain vulnerable to the spread of infections due to its close proximity to the national highway.
“As part of the sensitisation among people on the COVID norms, we will resume the distribution of facemasks, sanitisers, soaps, and immunity boosters in the forest-fringe areas,” Ms. Sree Latha said.