Police and civic officials will resume visits to markets in Kolkata with plea to customers and traders to wear masks as Covid cases are on the rise again.
Cops would regularly visit markets at the height of the second wave of Covid infections primarily to ensure that the shops closed down on time. The visits stopped as the curbs were relaxed following a sharp fall in the number of cases.
But with the recent rise in the case count and pictures of people without masks standing close to each other going viral, the authorities have decided to resume the visits.
The decision was taken at a meeting at the Kolkata Municipal Corporation headquarters on Friday. The meeting was chaired by Firhad Hakim, the chairperson of the board of administrators of the KMC.
“Police personnel will visit markets and urge people, including sellers, to wear masks. A senior officer from Lalbazar was present at the meeting,” said an official of the KMC.
“Civic officials, too, will visit markets with the same appeal. Though no penal action has been thought of for disregarding the mask norm, we will put pressure on shoppers and traders to follow the norm.”
Hakim stressed the need to launch more awareness campaigns.
“The KMC will hire autorickshaws in each of the 144 wards. Our staff will go around in autos making announcements, telling people to wear masks and maintain a distance of 6ft from another person. They will also spread awareness on vector-borne diseases like malaria and dengue,” a KMC official said.
Public health expert Abhijit Chowdhury said: “People must understand that wearing a mask is the strongest protection against Covid-19.”
The number of Covid cases in the city has gradually risen over the past few days. The state health department’s Covid-19 bulletin on August 1 mentioned that 60 new cases had been recorded in Kolkata over the previous 24 hours. The August 12 bulletin showed the count had risen to 77.
The bulletin published on Thursday (August 26) showed as many as 118 new cases had been reported from Calcutta over the past 24 hours.
The entire state reported 717 cases on Thursday.
Hakim also asked civic staff to visit houses, especially in slums, to identify people who are not fully or partially vaccinated against Covid. Civic field workers have to motivate such people to take their shots.
The civic body will also resume sanitising public places and markets.