JAMMU: Cabinet Secretary, Rajiv Gauba today asked all States and Union Territories to formulate containment plan as a part of their strategy to deal with spread of coronavirus and its effective implementation on ground to avoid reaching stage of community transmission.
Cabinet Secretary was interacting with the Chief Secretaries of all States/UTs and other concerned senior officers through video conference.
Advisor to Prime Minister, Amarjeet Sinha, Secretary Health, Preeti Sudan, Environment Secretary, CK Mishra and other Secretaries of concerned Ministries attended the meeting.
The lockdown period provides the country a window of opportunities to act positively and be prepared to face any eventuality, Gauba told chief secretaries of all states and UTs through video conference.
“Next few days will be very important for all and we need to sustain our containment efforts and utilize all available resources as per the requirement,” he said.
He asked district surveillance and rapid response teams to be fully alert and functional to ensure that every suspect is traced and tested without any loss of time.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Secretary B V R Subhramanyam, Financial Commissioner Health Atal Dulloo, Principal Secretary Dheeraj Gupta, Jammu Divisional Commissioner Sanjiv Verma attended the meeting, an official spokesperson said.
Gauba asked states and UTs to prepare a containment plan keeping in view the situation in their respective regions so that effective measures are taken in time to fight COVID-19.
He lauded the efforts of district collectors in managing the situation and asked them to undertake containment activities in their respective districts.
Emphasising on aggressive tracing, testing exercise and putting people in isolation and quarantine to control further spread in communities, he said “our priority should be saving lives of people and that can be done only if we implement the action plan seriously”.
The Cabinet Secretary asked the States/UTs to closely monitor the health of coronavirus patients as per the health protocol to minimize mortality due to deadly virus.
Earlier, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), GoI organized an ‘Orientation cum Training Session on Containment Strategy’ through video conference. The initiative was taken to share with the States/UTs especially the District Collectors of high case load districts and the measures/steps they need to take for having strong containment strategy besides, making preparations with regard to hospitals and health care system.
On the occasion, discussion were held on strategic interventions required for effective containment plan, impact of social distancing, micro plan activities, role and responsibilities of DCs and field staff deployed under containment plan etc.
District Collectors also shared the work done in their respective districts for containment, prevention and management of coronavirus. The Cabinet Secretary asks DCs to take lead and implement the action plan on ground with the support of health and other field staff. Every district must be prepared with regard to provision of dedicated Covid hospitals and other necessary logistics required for fighting with the virus.
The death toll due to the novel coronavirus rose to 83 and the cases climbed to 3,577 in the country on Sunday after 505 new infections were reported in the past 24 hours, according to the Union Health Ministry.
