North Goa, which welcomed tourists during the festive season, turned everything down covid Protocol, now the weekly positivity rate is higher than the districts of Delhi, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Punjab, etc.
Only one district each in Nagaland, Himachal and Tamil Nadu, four in Arunachal Pradesh as well as Faridabad in Haryana and Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, have higher weekly positivity rates than Goa.
For the months following the second wave – except on a few occasions in September, October and November – both the districts of Goa recorded positivity rates below 2%. North Goa crossed the 5% positivity mark for the first time in the week of December 24 to December 30 and immediately followed by South Goa and within four days the weekly positivity rate of North Goa was 10% weekly in the week of December 28 to January 3 Crossed the mark of positivity.
A week later, North Goa’s weekly positivity rate jumped to over 40%.
Goa has quickly moved from the Centre’s list of districts with a weekly positivity rate of less than five per cent to 10 per cent from the five per cent, which is now above 10 per cent.
The small state’s northern district has been registering a weekly positivity rate of over 40% since the week of January 10 to January 16.
After the disastrous second wave in August, the State Expert Committee on COVID had recommended that a graded approach to tourism be followed as per the curfew plan approved by the State Task Force headed by the Chief Minister in August 2020. As per the plan, restrictions will be imposed. Can be gauged by using the positivity rate of the state as an indicator.
This curfew plan, which involved shutting down all tourism activities in case of positivity rate above 10%, was not followed and it was pointed out to the High Court recently, the committees decided to impose restrictions on the basis of bed occupancy. Changed its curfew plan and decided to increase the number of oxygenated beds in Covid hospitals instead of positivity rates.
The expert committee at its meeting on 8 January said that the members felt after “much deliberation” that “there is a paradigm shift in the third wave as compared to the second wave and therefore the positivity rate would not be an appropriate indicator or key to the sanctions and an element of the framework used to facilitate decision-making in implementing prevention measures”.
The committee recommended that 10% bed occupancy and 40% on oxygen supported beds for Super Specialty Block of Goa Medical Colleges, and 50% on oxygen supported beds for North Goa District Hospital and South Goa District Hospital be used as indicators. should be done. Curfew Scheme.
As per the old curfew plan approved in August 2021, in case of positivity rate of more than five per cent and active cases of 2,500 and above, testing should be implemented at borders and all work restricted to 50 and 100 in a closed hall should go. open space.
In case of positivity rate of more than 10% and more than 5,000 active cases, all tourism activities are closed, and for positivity rate of more than 20% and active cases of more than 10,000, maximum restriction on entry inside is applied. State and total curfew will be allowed with only essential services.
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