Police and Kolkata Municipal Corporation officials conducted a campaign inside the Dakshinapan shopping complex in Dhakuria on Friday afternoon urging people to wear masks.
Just outside the south Kolkata complex, barely 100 metres from where the team was spreading awareness on Covid, people were roaming around without any face covering.
The Telegraph asked a man standing outside the complex, holding a helmet, why he was not wearing a mask. He said the mask fell on the road while he was trying to take off his helmet.
A trader inside the shopping complex said he had forgotten to mask up. The mask was in his shirt pocket, though, he reasoned.
In Gariahat, New Market and other shopping hubs, many were seen without masks throughout the day.
A fresh rise in the number of Covid cases has prompted the authorities to decide to visit markets and tell people that the pandemic was far from over and they needed to mask up to protect themselves from the disease.
The primary aim was to check whether the shops closed at the scheduled time. The visits stopped following a sharp fall in the number of cases.
Kolkata recorded 122 new cases on Thursday and 110 on Friday.
On August 20, the city’s new case count stood at 88. It was 68 and 60 on August 10 and 1, respectively.
The team, comprising representatives of the police and the civic body, went around the shopping complex with a loudhailer. The message they kept delivering was that everyone should wear a mask for their good as well as for the good of society.
Cops and civic officials used to visit markets during the peak of the first wave of infections last year and the peak of the second wave this year.
“It’s time Kolkatans behaved responsibly,” public health expert Abhijit Chowdhury warned.
“The number of Covid cases has started rising again. Last year, we could avert a surge by preventing crowding in puja pandals. This year, too, we should avoid crowding and keep wearing masks. If we behave irresponsibly, we will invite a disaster,” he said.
“The Delta variant of the virus (which is driving a surge in many countries) evades vaccines at times. So the best way to stay safe from Covid is to wear a mask,” Chowdhury said.
A senior doctor in the KMC’s health department said the civic body, along with ramping up vaccination, would keep repeating the message that people should wear masks and follow other Covid protocols.
The KMC has extended the duration of vaccination at its centres in anticipation of a steady supply of doses from the Centre in September. The Centre has promised to supply 1.33 crore doses to the state health department this month. The KMC gets its vaccines from the health department.
