New Delhi: At a time when the central government has been exploring options to fight Covid and increasing pollution, a senior health and environmental expert Dr Anil Goyal told ETV Bharat on Saturday that pollution with the cold weather stays for a longer period of time, which allows the Covid virus to multiply.
"Pollution, cold weather are the major causes of increasing Covid-19 cases in Delhi. In the first wave, it was 3,000 plus Covid cases at the peak and in the second peak it was 4,000 plus cases and now it's 6,000 plus cases in daily basis in the national capital," said Dr Goyal asserting that third wave of Covid-19 has taken place in Delhi.
In fact, Delhi overtook Maharashtra and Kerala by reporting 7178 Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours. And with this number, Delhi has also become the largest contributor to the new 50,356 single day infections in India.
Seventy percent of the new Covid-19 cases are coming from 10 states and UTs including Delhi, Kerala, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.
Dr Goyal said that mortality has also increased this time in Delhi with 1.73 per cent.
"The positivity rate at present is 12 to 13 per cent, which at one point of time was 5.3 per cent. Positivity rate has increased, the number of Covid cases has increased, mortality has increased and thus the seriousness of the cases have also increased," said Dr Goyal.
He emphasised that the government should conduct more RT PCR tests. "Only 23 per cent are RT PCR tests and 73 per cent-plus are antigen test. Whereas the antigen tests show 50 per cent false negative and false sense of security. In fact, people with flu-like symptoms should go through RT PCR tests. The antigen tests should be kept reserved for screening purpose," said Dr Goyal.
He further said that identification and contact tracing should be on mission mode process. He said that Covid protocol should be enforced strictly.
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"If you see in Delhi, there are crowded marketplaces and even in religious places. And all this happening because there is no enforcement. People are now fatigued of Covid-19 and they don't possibly take care of Covid behaviour like hand-hygiene, social distancing among others," said Dr Goyal.
He cautioned that people should not go out of their homes and move around without any necessity.
"Even if people go out of their home, they need to wear face masks and maintain social distancing," he said.
It may be mentioned here that a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Urban Affairs on Friday took a note from representatives of different central government departments and explored options to control the current pollution.
"Pollution is a major threat during the Covid19 pandemic. We need to sprinkle water outside our houses, outside shops and establishments. The government also need to do mechanical cleansing so that dust is taken care of," said Dr Goyal.
He said that Carbon emissions coming out from vehicles, industry, construction sites etc need to be strictly controlled.
Dr Goyal suggested that the odd-even number for vehicles should be rolled out to control pollution.
