Covid resurge and Punjab

The Punjab government seems prepared to deal with the situation arising from the increasing cases of coronavirus in the province. Now the positivity ratio of Covid-19 in the province is 6.1% while it stands at 8.2% in the provincial capital. The health department maintains that they are making all efforts to contain the spread of the contagion. It is focused on ensuring the availability of beds in hospitals, necessary medicines, oxygen, medical equipment, including ventilators, and has stepped up the vaccination drive. The province has been experiencing a surge in the incidence of coronavirus over the past two weeks. This might be attributed to people’s failure to properly observe the SOPs. The general tendency in Punjab, like elsewhere in the country, is to disregard the Covid-19 protocols. Learning from the experience during the earlier waves of coronavirus, the authorities are taking no chances this time around. Formerly there had been complaints of shortage of hospital beds, medicines and ventilators. Shortages had led to protests outside hospitals. The local manufacture of ventilators has greatly improved things.

Willingness to get inoculated depends on the level of awareness in different segments of society. Now the vaccination rate has improved all over the country as the government has succeeded in its endeavour to persuade people to get coronavirus jabs for their own and society’s safety. Unfortunately, there are still many who doubt even the reality of the dreaded pandemic and hence are trying to avoid the preventive vaccine largely due to a disinformation campaign being carried out on social media. Despite the resistance from misinformed sections, the government has been successful in convincing people to get themselves vaccinated to a considerable extent. The official campaign suffers from some shortcomings. The most notable is that so far the authorities have not informed people who should take the jab and who should not. People suffering from heart and liver diseases and diabetics are reluctant to take the vaccine.