Only 21 per cent follow social distancing norms in Madurai, finds survey

Talking to reporters on Tuesday, B Chandra Mohan, the senior IAS officer who was appointed the monitoring officer for the district, said the survey done with the help of students and faculty from Madurai Institute of Social Sciences (MISS) to analyse how people followed the guidelines revealed that only 21 per cent followed the norm on keeping six feet distance from others.

In all, the survey done in July and August had 2,125 respondents from 100 wards in Madurai Corporation limits, categorised into aged under 30 (474 samples), 31-60 (1,505) and above 60 (146).

It showed that 68.6 per cent always wore masks when they stepped out while 27.4 per cent used it only sometimes. While 67.2 per cent washed their hand whenever they returned from outside, 27 per cent did so sometimes; but 5.6 per cent followed it only rarely. Only 21 per cent followed physical distancing norms, and merely 10.8 percent avoided crowded places, Chandra Mohan said, citing the need to create more awareness among the public.

According to him, compulsory mask use, maintaining a minimum distance of six feet and washing hands properly helped bring down the number of cases in Madurai.

District Collector TG Vinay noted that COVID cases went down below 100 in the last month and added that fatality rate was also less at 2.3 percent. Active cases, too have come down in the district, he added.