Chandigarh, February 12: The Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu on Friday issued the instructions to all Civil Surgeons to implement strictly COVID appropriate behaviors and keep testing for COVID-19 at least 1000 per million populations.
Giving details in press communique, the Health Minister Mr. Balbir Singh Sidhu said that to accelerate contact tracing of COVID patients, instructions have also been issued to trace at least 20 contacts of every positive patient and get them tested as well. He said that contact tracing increased from about 4 contacts per case to nearly 12 contacts per positive case.
Mr. Sidhu Stated that at the peak, Punjab used to report 2500 to 3000 cases per day. Due to good containment efforts of Captain Amrinder Singh led Punjab Government, during last two months, the number of cases have been decreasing steadily and average daily cases reported came down to about 200 per day with recovery rate of 95%.
Recent few days have seen an up rise in number of COVID-19 cases in the State with 309 cases being reported on 11.2.2021 said Health Minister adding that this trend indicates, COVID-19 is not over yet and we are at risk of witnessing a surge in number of cases which strictly requires the need for following COVID Appropriate Behaviors like social distancing, wearing of mask and hand sanitization.
Divulging about the vaccination programme, Mr. Sidhu said that so far 2.05 Lakh Health Care Workers and 1.77 Lakh Front Line Workers have been registered for COVID-19 vaccination. About 74,286 HCW and 23,085 FLW have been vaccinated.
Health Minister further said that facility of registering beneficiaries for vaccination of Front Line Workers of Revenue and PRI departments is still open till 17 February. The last date or availing first dose of vaccination for HCW has been extended from 12th February to 19 February.
He assured that the vaccine is safe and effective and every HCW and FLW must get vaccinated. It is for their safety and that of their families.
Pointing out the present status of COVID-19, Mr. Sidhu said that across the world there is a surge in number of cases with countries like USA, Brazil, France, Spain, UK and Italy recording large number of daily cases. USA is at the top with about 1,00,000 lakh cases being reported daily but India is witnessing a decreasing trend in number of cases.
Expressing concern over states where COVID cases are rising, he said that Maharashtra and Kerala have constantly recorded a high number of daily cases so that the Punjab Government has taken prompt decisions to control the spread of corona virus in the State. As of today 80 containment zone and 2081 micro containment zones have been declared by the Health department.
