Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Saturday called for strict checking of entrants from other states and UTs, particularly Delhi where coronavirus cases were rising.
Singh, however, made it clear that Punjabis were welcome to come from Delhi for COVID treatment in the state after getting their beds reserved in a medical facility here on the recommendation of a Delhi hospital.
The chief minister was responding to a question from a Punjab resident working in Delhi during his Facebook Live 'Ask Captain' session.
On the issue of sealing Punjab's borders with other states, Singh said while Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh have sealed their borders with Punjab, people were coming from Haryana and Delhi every day in large numbers.
On Friday alone, 6,500 vehicles entered Punjab from Delhi and Haryana, which translated into about 20,000 people coming from these states on a single day.
His government was mulling ways to make entry norms more stringent, given the increasing number of positive cases in the state, the chief minister said, adding that of the total of 2,986 cases in Punjab, 1,471 were outsiders and their contacts.
Though the state was still performing relatively better than many others in the country, cases in Punjab were also continuing to spiral, necessitating tough measures, a statement quoting the CM said.
While nobody likes restrictions, he had been forced to impose weekend and holiday curbs to protect lives, Singh said, adding that restrictions on inter-state movement on these days were also intended to check unnecessary socialising.
Pointing to the spike of 117 cases in a single day in the state, the chief minister attributed the sharp rise to the influx of people into the state, which has witnessed the entry of as many as 43,000 people in just one month.
In addition to people landing in Amritsar from Dubai and other places, trains culminating in the city were also adding to the deluge of people, he said, adding that the three cities of Amritsar, Jalandhar and Ludhiana have seen the maximum cases.
Restrictions were important to check the spread further to other districts such as Pathankot, Patiala and Gurdaspur, he added.
Another reason for more cases being recorded was the increased testing in the state, which had gone up from the initial 700 to 11,000, Singh said, adding that the state government was in the process of procuring the latest machines to increase the number of tests further to 20,000 a day.
So far, a total of 1,65,000 tests had been conducted, he said, quoting experts as saying that testing was the only vaccine at present against coronavirus.
He said testing facilities would soon be established in Pathankot and Gurdaspur so that people from these cities need not go to Amritsar for getting their tests done.
To further scale up the fight against the disease, the health department is also in the process of completing training of more medical staff, he added.
In reply to a question, the CM hoped that the situation would not arise wherein the state's health infrastructure would get overwhelmed.
Already, the state government was allowing asymptomatic patients or those with mild symptoms to remain in home isolation to ensure that there is no major burden on the health system, he said.
Singh said all deputy commissioners were being directed to check meat shops to see if any meat was being sold without protocols to avert any virus spread from this source.
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