by: Navjeevan Express

Coronavirus: Govt modifies order, only essential item shops to open in Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, and Surat

NE NEWS SERVICE

GANDHINAGAR, APRIL 26

No shops apart from those dealing with essential items will be allowed to open till May 3 during the coronavirus-induced lockdown in Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara and Rajkot cities in Gujarat, an official said on Sunday.

Secretary to the Chief Minister Ashwani Kumar said,   “Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, after a detailed deliberation with Municipal Commissioners of the four megacities, has decided that only services related to the provision of essential items shall be operational in Ahmedabad, Surat, Rajkot, and Vadodara. The decision comes ahead of CM’s decision to permit shops and businesses to operate from Sunday, April 26. Considering the severity of the outbreak, the state government has decided that the shops and businesses shall only resume in these four cities after May 3. The CM has clearly instructed that shops for essential items such as milk, vegetables, fruits, medicines, and related things shall remain operational.”

The state government had conditionally eased some lockdown restrictions on shops, leaving aside those inside malls, etc, on Saturday following order to this effect by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) a day earlier.

The Municipal Commissioners and District Collectors had a detailed discussion with the regional shop owners initially.  Based on the discussion, the Municipal Commissioners had a detailed discussion with the Chief Minister.

A state government official said the decision to keep only shops dealing with essential items open was taken at a meeting on Sunday which was attended by the civic chiefs of the four cities, adding that traders and retail bodies had been consulted and they were in support.

Ahmedabad Municipal Commissioner Vijay Nehra said the civic body had aimed to increase the span of COVID-19 cases doubling from the present eight days to 12 days by May 3, till when the nationwide lockdown is scheduled.

“To achieve this (12-day doubling) target, which is a little difficult, we have appealed to shopkeepers to not open shops till May 3. We have spoken to trade bodies and they have agreed. Police has also been informed. With shops open, the infection rate is likely to increase,” Nehra said.

The COVID-19 count in Ahmedabad has crossed the 2,000-mark. The state government has said that all shops, except those selling paan masala, as well as beauty parlours, saloons, spas, hotels-restaurants, will be allowed to remain open in other parts of the state if they are not located in malls and shopping complexes.

Commencing Monday, Gandhi bridge and Dadhichi bridge will also remain closed for all except the essential services, the AMC said.

However, no taxi, autorickshaw or public transport services will operate in the state till May 3, it added.

Providing details of additional provision of grains to 66 lakh NFSA families, Kumar said, “ A total of 15 lakh NFSA cardholders have availed 3.5 kg wheat and 1.5 kg rice. Around 5 lakh people availed food grains on the second day of distribution. Around 26,250 metric tons of wheat and 11,250 metric tons of rice have been distributed through 17,000 fair price shops.”

20,600 labourers have resumed their duties at 598 government construction sites. Around 7,500 labourers have resumed their duties at 73 private construction sites.

6 lakh 89 thousand quintals of Agri produce has been sold by farmers at the APMCs. A major portion of this includes 3,48, 042 quintals of wheat, 1,89, 567 quintals of castor, and 36,095 quintals of mustard. 1 lakh 14 thousand 541 quintals of vegetables and 13,255 quintals of fruits are available in the state.

Odisha to bring back migrant workers stranded in Gujarat

The Odisha government has decided to bring back migrant workers from the state who are stranded in Gujarat amid the nationwide lockdown over the novel coronavirus or Covid-19 pandemic.

On Sunday, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik spoke to his Gujarat counterpart Vijay Rupani and discussed the safe passage of Odisha migrants workers stuck in the western state amid lockdown.

The decision was taken after Naveen Pattnaik, Vijay Rupani and Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan held a meeting via video-conference on Sunday.

It was decided that for the safe return of the Odisha migrant workers, a coordination committee comprising two senior officers, each from Odisha and Gujarat, will be formed to chalk out the details of the transport.

While most of the workers will be brought back to Odisha in buses, both the state governments will decide to bring the remaining workers through other modes of transport after a review.

The Odisha government is also in talks with the governments of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh and will request these states to exempt road tax on the busses carrying the migrant labourers from Gujarat to Odisha.

Earlier, the Odisha government has made the registration mandatory for these migrant Odisha workers who will be kept in government quarantine for 14 days.

Recently, to ensure mandatory registration of the returnees and for effective management of COVID-19, sarpanches were empowered with powers of a collector and the law has been changed accordingly by Naveen Pattnaik

In the past few weeks, hundreds of migrant workers from parts of the country staged violent protests in Surat, demanding they be sent back to their native places. Many of them were detained by the Gujarat police and were later released.

Aggressive coronavirus strain more prevalent in Wuhan behind Gujarat’s higher death rate, say experts

The high COVID-19 mortality rate in Gujarat could be due to the dominance of the L-type strain of coronavirus, found to have been more prevalent in Wuhan in China, where the outbreak started, experts said.

The dominance of the more virulent L-type coronavirus strain as compared to the S-type one could be behind the high mortality rate in the state, which has reported 133 deaths so far. However, no research has been conducted to confirm this, they said.

A scientist at the state-run Gujarat Biotechnology Research Centre (GBRC) said that the novel coronavirus used for genome sequencing recently conducted by it was found to contain the L-type strain. “Analysis done by scientists abroad has shown that the

The L-type strain has been dominant where more mortality is reported among coronavirus patients. This strain was found to be more prevalent in Wuhan,” director of GBRC, C G Joshi, said. “The coronavirus sample we collected from a patient for genome sequence contained the L-type strain. This strain has a much higher virulence as compared to the S-strain,” he said.

“Variation in coronavirus is in terms of number and percentage of mutations. As per the analysis, the L-type strain is dominant where more mortality is reported. Scientists have earlier found that this strain has caused more deaths,” he said.

The GBRC recently succeeded in decoding the entire genome sequence of the novel coronavirus and identified its three new mutations Joshi added that the patient from whom the virus sample was collected for sequencing has fully recovered. So far, no study has been conducted here to establish which strain of coronavirus is predominant in patients here.

Atul Patel, a specialist in infectious diseases, attributed the presence of the L-type strain more than the S-type one in Gujarat is behind a high mortality rate. Patel has said that a little higher presence of the L-type strain, or the original Wuhan strain, could be behind a higher death rate in the state. The state government has also attributed the high mortality among coronavirus patients in the state to co-morbidities and high-risk factors.

Heart and lung diseases, diabetes, and hypertension are among common diseases that have been found among COVID-19 patients who passed away in Gujarat. The risk factors include patients in the age group of above over 60 years and under five years of age and pregnant women, and they account for 90 percent of patients who passed away, Principal Secretary (Health), Jayanti Ravi had recently said.