As visitors choose fun over masks, virus worries locals

Calangute: With tourism in the popular Calangute-Candolim beach belt gradually picking up, stakeholders fear this could lead to a new wave of Covid-19 infections as most visitors move around without face

masks

and don’t follow social distancing norms.

“Tourists are roaming around without any masks as there are no police personnel on the beach to monitor them,” Calangute panch Saluzinho Fernandes, who is the Baga ward member, told TOI.

With tourists not being tested at the state’s borders, it has become a dangerous situation for the locals, he said.

“All the locals are wearing masks and taking precautions, but there is nobody to tell the tourists to keep the masks on,” Fernandes said.

Although the Covid

case

count has dropped, there could be a

rise

in infections again, Shack Owners’ Welfare Society general secretary John Lobo said.

“Tourist police should be posted on the beach and they should fine tourists moving around without masks,” Lobo said. “The police come and tell shack owners and water sports operators and their staff to wear masks, but nothing is being done about tourists not wearing masks. This will surely lead to a major spread of the virus, as it happened in Delhi and elsewhere,” Lobo said.

Minister for ports and Calangute MLA Michael Lobo had recently stated that he would be asking the chief minister to redeploy Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) police on the beach, as was done earlier, but that has still not happened, stakeholders said.

Dr Roshan Nazareth, health officer at the Candolim primary health centre, which has been reporting a significant number of cases, said a majority of the positive cases are of non-Goans.

Of the 11 positive cases on Tuesday, nine are non-Goans. “There have been some tourists staying in hotels who tested positive after they developed symptoms. Most of the positive cases have non-Goan names, but we don’t keep a separate list of tourists. They also include staff of guesthouses and other tourism-related places,” he said.

Nazareth said the tourists who tested positive were allowed to stay in their hotel rooms for the quarantine period, with the hotels taking adequate precautions.