Lockdown Not A Solution, No Possibility In Delhi: Health Minister Satyendar Jain

Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain has ruled out possibilities of lockdown in the national capital, saying it was not a solution to check the spread of the coronavirus.

Coronavirus in Delhi

After months of improvement in the Coronavirus situation, the country is witnessing a second wave of deadly Covid-19. Moreover, taking note of upcoming festivals and anticipating that public functions may further spread the deadly virus causing major set back to the slight gain made in suppressing the chain in the past few months, some states have resorted to another lockdown in the areas which have emerged as hotspot. 

However, the Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain has ruled out possibilities of lockdown in the national capital, saying it was not a solution to check the spread of the coronavirus that is again surging rapidly. There is "no possibility" of imposing another lockdown in the city, Jain said, as quoted by news agency PTI. 

Speaking to the reporters, Jain on being asked about the first lockdown said, "there was a logic behind the lockdown enforced earlier as nobody knew then how the virus propagates. It follows a 14-day cycle -- between a person catching the infection and recovering from it. Experts said the virus will die if a lockdown is imposed for 21 days. Authorities kept on extending the lockdown, but the virus did not die. I don't think lockdown is a solution." 

While stating the latest state of Corona in Delhi, the Health Minister said that 1,534 positive cases were reported in Delhi on Friday and the positivity is 1.8 per cent.

Earlier the cases were less but recently there has been a slight increase. For this, we have increased testing a lot. Now 80-90 thousand tests are being done daily. We are doing 5 times more tests than the average testing of the country.

In response to the question over how long the current peak of the corona is likely to remain, Satyendra Jain said we will have to see the trend, usually it takes 3-4 weeks for a definite trend to appear and accordingly the measures and guidelines will be formed.