As Corona cases dip, more Bhopalis let down guard

As Corona cases dip, more Bhopalis let down guard

Ashutosh.Shukla@timesgroup.com

Bhopal:13.02.2021 

Friday afternoon: A restaurant in Bittan Market. There is sanitiser on the stand on the door for guests to sanitise their hands before they get into the restaurant. All the waiters are masked and so is the man at the counter. But, none of the five to six guests in the restaurant — waiting for their order to be served — are wearing masks.

This phenomenon is not limited to one restaurant, market, office, temple or a superstore, but can be found everywhere in the city. While many of the superstores, shops, restaurants, hotels and offices are still sticking to guidelines issued for them at the time of Unlock, visitors at those places have “forgotten” about them.

When the person at the restaurant counter was asked why he allowed people without masks to come in, he thought it was a policeman or an administrative or BMC official asking him the question and started explaining, “Can’t you see sir? None of them are wearing masks nor have any of them used the sanitiser while coming in. What can I do? Earlier, it was still possible to persuade people to observe the guidelines, but now nobody cares and if you ask them to do it, they will not take it kindly,” he said.

The restaurant in question didn’t have provision for thermal screening, but Birla temple still allows devotees after thermal screening. ‘Prasad’ is still not accepted. The temple’s outer wall has a notice telling people that they should put the ‘prasad’ and ‘phool-mala’ on the slab outside because it won’t be accepted and if they so wish, they can take it back while returning. There were not many devotees at the temple for ‘darshan’ but only some of them were wearing masks because the guard taking their body temperature was not asking them about the mask.

Many of those who used to keep their mask tied to their chin, perhaps to put it on their face, if there is checking somewhere have completely given up on them since police, administration and BMC staff are no longer fining people without masks.

District collector Avinash Lavania, admitted that with receding cases of coronavirus in the city, people definitely seem to have become slack in observing Covid-19 protocol. Also, checks by police, administration and BMC to see that people comply with the coronavirus guidelines may also not be vigorous as before, “but we shall catch up with it,” he said.

UNMASKED: Shoppers without masks in New Market