The J&K administration on Sunday extended ‘Corona curfew’ up to May 17 in all 20 districts, with the experts fearing that daily positive cases may touch up to 10,000 a day in coming weeks.
“Corona curfew imposed in all 20 districts of J&K till 7 a.m. on Monday is extended further by seven days till Monday (May 17). The curfew will be strict except for a few essential services,” a government spokesman said.
The spokesman said the gathering permissible for marriages is now reduced to 25.
L-G chairs meet
These decisions were taken during a high-level meeting of the Covid Task Force chaired by J&K Lieutenant-Governor Manoj Sinha. “Ten additional oxygen generation plants are coming up in J&K soon with the intervention of the Central government. Most of the big COVID care government hospitals here now have their own oxygen generation plants. The upcoming plants will add to the capacity of oxygen availability in the UT,” Mr. Sinha said.
Meanwhile, restrictions have yielded some favourable results in containing the spread of the corona virus, especially at the community level, the officials said.
The J&K administration also decided to start contractual reappointment of retired healthcare workers, including faculty members, medical officers and senior-cum-junior consultants.
“In view of the surge in COVID-19 cases in its second wave and with a view to augment the efforts of the government in fight against this pandemic, sanction is accorded to the contractual appointment of those faculty members, as have retired from the Government Medical Colleges, Srinagar and Jammu, and SKIMS, Soura/Bemina, who are within 70 years of age as on June 2021 and are willing to join in their respective parent institutions for deployment for COVID duty,” a government order said.
The engagement shall be for a period of one year, it added.
The fresh measures have come after Prof. M.S. Khuroo, Chairman of the Apex Level Advisory Committee of Government of Jammu and Kashmir for COVID-19, in an interview to a local daily, asked the administration to prepare for receiving close to 10,000 COVID positive cases with around 100 deaths per day.
Likely to peak
“The pandemic is likely to peak within 3 to 4 weeks and stay at a plateau for several weeks before showing regression. The next six to eight weeks are crucial as J&K is likely to witness 6,000 to 10,000 cases, 60 to 100 deaths per day,” Prof. Khuroo was quoted as saying by the daily.
He said many mutant strains of the virus in addition to the wild strain have resulted in some distinctive features this year. “There is a suspicion that COVID-19 as of today in J&K has higher mortality and morbidity,” he added.
