Worried about testing of fresh COVID cases from outside containment zones, Chief Secretary of Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, Dr. Arun Kumar Mehta on Tuesday directed the authorities to redevise the strategy to prevent the possible third wave.
During the last week, Jammu and Kashmir is witnessing a dangerous fluctuating trend in Coronavirus trajectory. On Tuesday 166 fresh COVID cases were reported in J&K. The number came down to 110 on Wednesday. On Thursday, a total of 89 fresh cases were reported during the last 24 hours.
Chief Secretary on Thursday chaired a meeting to review the prevailing COVID situation in the Union Territory and reiterated the continuance of the campaign for awareness generation towards prevention of possible third wave in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Chief Secretary observed that the current strategy for micro-containment zones needs to be reviewed to ensure its effectiveness and restriction of outward movement from clusters having a substantial number of COVID positive cases. He further expressed concern regarding a large number of cases being reported outside containment zones. It was directed that COVID SOPs and protocols must be strictly enforced in these zones supported by enhanced testing, fool-proof quarantine of patients, and stringent penalties on defaulters.
The Chief Secretary directed the department to evolve vaccination strategies that would be most effective in reducing the number of cases per day.
District administrations directed to improve testing quotas
District administrations were asked to intensively promote COVID appropriate behaviour, improve the rate of testing as per target quotas, and mobilize targeted beneficiaries towards the vaccination process. The Chief Secretary maintained that existing strategies must be recalibrated towards ensuring low rates of infection in districts, and case trajectory is closely monitored to keep daily reported cases below 50.
He urged the enforcement agencies to adopt a graded-penalty mechanism to penalize repetitive defaulters and offenders and work out mechanisms in collaboration with various market associations, trade associations, and employee associations to best implement such a system.
Health Department asked to conduct machinery, manpower audit
While reviewing the availability of medical facilities, equipment, and machinery, the Health and Medical Education Department was asked to undertake machinery and equipment audits and ensure their functionality along with the availability of technical manpower, besides, organizing regular training of medical professionals to cater to COVID-related emergencies.
The Department was also asked to optimally utilize the augmented medical infrastructure by rationalizing patient load across the hierarchy of hospitals and putting them to alternate usage during healthy interludes.
J&K reports 89 fresh cases
The Government on Thursday informed that 89 new positive cases of novel Coronavirus cases-16 from the Jammu division and 73 from the Kashmir Valley, have been reported during the last 24 hours, thus taking the total number of positive cases in Jammu and Kashmir to 325618.
Moreover, 88 more COVID patients have been recovered and been discharged from various hospitals, including 48 from Jammu Division and 40 from Kashmir Division. Besides this, 67.63 percent of the population above the age of 18 years has been vaccinated across Jammu and Kashmir.
