Surge: Curfew extended by 2 hours in Mohali district

Sanjay Bumbroo
Tribune News Service
Mohali, March 18

In view of a spurt in Covid cases during the past one week, the curfew timings in the district has been increased by two hours.

The curfew will now be effective from 9 pm to 5 am, instead of 11 pm to 5 am in Mohali. All shops will be closed by 8.30 pm, while essential services will function as usual.

Aashika Jain, Additional Deputy Commissioner, said following the directions of the state government, the night curfew had been extended by two hours. She said the main objective was to discourage large presence of people at marriage palaces, discotheques, restaurants and hotels. She added that strict action would be taken against the violators.

Jain said the district administration had arranged 100 beds at Chandigarh University, Gharuan, and 19 beds at the de-addiction centre in Sector 66 for Level 1 category patients. Hospital administrations had been told to update the health status of critical patients daily so that all available resources could be pooled to contain the case fatality rate, which was at 1.8 per cent. It is pertinent to mention here that the district administration had already directed the hospitals to postpone elective surgeries as far as possible to dedicate requisite resources towards treatment of Covid patients.

To meet the shortage of staff in hospitals in view of the spurt in Covid cases, the district administration would rope in doctors, nurses and other paramedical staff on contractual bases as per the norms laid by the Health Department. Earlier, the term of the medical professionals, who had joined on contractual basis, had ended in November last year.

On March 1, the district Covid tally stood at 20,375, which has now shot up to 22,654. The number of deaths has gone up from 385 to 408.

In February, 20 Covid deaths were reported while in the past 18 days, 23 deaths have been reported from the district.