LAHORE: The second wave of Covid-19, which began in the first week of November, continues to take its toll as Punjab reports average 30 deaths daily since then.

The virus claimed lives of 30 more critical patients during the last 24 hours in Punjab, taking the tally to 5,114. The total number of confirmed cases of the virus reached 165,200 after 504 more people tested positive during the same period.

Speaking about the factors behind the persistently emerging new cases of the virus and deaths in Punjab, health experts lament that both the public and the government are not taking the pandemic seriously.

“The pandemic was curtailed within four months of its emergence in Punjab during the first wave. It was at its peak in June and the number of cases and deaths witnessed a visible decrease,” a senior health expert said. He said the situation was almost under control in August but Punjab came in the grip of second coronavirus wave when both the government and public took it lightly.

He warned that new spike could prove to be more lethal than the first wave if the violation of SOPs continues.

A senior health official criticised the government’s ‘home isolation policy’, declaring it one of the leading factors behind the persistently emerging number of deaths and new cases of the virus even after three months of the second spike in Punjab. He said because of the low literacy rate in Punjab, a majority of the people were unaware of the precautions, prevention and treatment protocols of the virus at a time when medical experts were unable to understand its pattern or behaviour.

They Punjab government, he said, left the patients of the virus at the mercy of their families and relatives under the ‘home isolation policy’. The patients face complications during home treatment and reach hospitals when it is already too late, thus increasing the death rate in Punjab, he said.

Published in Dawn, February 18th, 2021