AHMEDABAD: Over the past year, it was generally observed that the rise and fall of Covid cases were reflected in the mask fines collected.
But now that will no more be the case.
In anticipation of the third wave, the city police have ramped up their surveillance and are tightening the noose around mask offenders.
More offences are being registered now.
Senior police officers said that novel coronavirus cases will shoot up again, if people flouted precautions, and so they got a mandate to implement the mask rule strictly.
Cops had gone soft on mask offenders during election month — February 2021, when the mask violation cases ranged around 327 per day and and even dropped to just four cases — on the day of election on February 21.
As the election got over, and there were no more political rallies, police became stringent, and coronavirus cases also began soaring in March and April.
Police gradually increased the registering of mask cases in March when cops registered on an average 600 cases per day.
In the month of April, the frequency of registering mask rule violations increased as did the number of Covid infections.
On April 1, cops in the city registered 772 cases of mask violations which increased to 2,050 cases on April 31.
In April, the cops registered on an average 2,000 cases of mask rule violations in the city, and Covid cases also went to their peak in the same month.
On April 25, the city registered the highest, 5,790 Covid-19 cases when police registered 2,278 cases of mask violations.
The city police personnel continued to register on an average 2,000 cases in the months of May and June.
Police officers said that they are apprehensive of the third wave now, and they will continue the action on people roaming without masks.
A cop deployed on PCR van duty said people usually remove their masks when they meet others.
It seems that they wear it to save themselves from cops and not from the coronavirus, he said.