Corona Curfew imposed in all 20 districts of J&K till 7 am on Monday, May 10, 2021 is extended further by 7 days till 7 am on Monday, May 17, 2021. The curfew will be strict except for a few essential services.Further, the gathering permissible for marriages is reduced to 25 only w.e.f. today, May 09, 2021.These decisions were taken during a high-level meeting of Covid Task Force chaired by Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha after a detailed assessment of the district-wise Covid scenario and containment measures required to control the spread of the deadly virus.The meeting was informed that 10 additional Oxygen generation plants are coming up in J&K soon with the intervention of the Central Government. The Lt Governor asked the concerned functionaries to prioritize the completion of all civil and other auxiliary works so that early functioning of these oxygen plants can be ensured.Most of the big Covid care Government hospitals in J&K now have their own oxygen generation plants. The upcoming oxygen plants will add to the capacity of oxygen availability in the UT, observed the Lt Governor.In order to break the transmission chain of the virus, it was decided that 50 % of staff in Government departments would attend offices as per duty rosters and their movement would be strictly through passes during the Corona Curfew.Decision was also taken to establish two more Triage centres, one each in both the divisions to facilitate Covid patients.While noting that early diagnosis of the infection has a better survival rate, the Lt Governor asked the Health Department to intensify the testing so that affected patients can be identified and treated accordingly. He called for communication with the public for cooperation and further directed for focusing on vulnerable groups for testing and vaccination.The Lt Governor asked the Divisional Commissioners to conduct extensive exercise of house to house screening and Covid-19 status verification for identifying the vulnerable population through dedicated teams at the local level.Emphasizing on optimum utilization of technological interventions and reaching out to the people with medical facilities through Tele-medicine, the Lt Governor directed the concerned officers to ensure that Tele-medicine facility is available for public in Medical Colleges and other tertiary care hospitals and asked them to spread awareness regarding the availability of doctors for Telemedicine facility along with their contact numbers.A comparative analysis was also done during the meeting to get a clear picture of the District-wise level of Transmission rate registered during pre-Corona Curfew and Corona curfew days. It was noted that the restrictions have yielded some favourable results in containing the spread of Corona virus, especially at the community level.The police department was directed to ensure strict enforcement of restrictions in areas with a high number of positive cases.The Lt Governor also took an overview of the progress being made for establishing the 500-bedded Covid facility, one each in Srinagar and Jammu by DRDO team, besides enhancing the capacity of Covid care facilities by the Army.Following the directions passed by the Lt Governor in previous meetings on enhancing the bed capacity in J&K, Sh. Atal Dulloo, Financial Commissioner, Health and Medical Education informed that oxygen support beds are being increased in the Hospitals across the UT, in a phased manner by prioritizing the high patient load hospitals.He also gave a detailed overview of Covid situation in J&K including Trends of daily cases, testing & positivity percentage; Covid testing capacities; case fatality rate; recovery rate; weekly cases per million population; District wise level of transmission; Tests done in last 7 days; Age-wise Deaths Audit; Contact tracing etc.It was informed that a total of 76,04,448 COVID tests have been performed in the UT with 3000 Tests per million population per day on an average.During the meeting, participants also gave their valuable suggestions for effective Covid management in the UT.Sh. BVR Subrahmanyam, Chief Secretary; Sh. Dilbag Singh, DGP; Sh. Arun Kumar Mehta, Financial Commissioner, Finance Department; Sh. Shaleen Kabra, Principal Secretary to the Government, Home Department; Sh. Nitishwar Kumar, Principal Secretary to the Lt Governor; Sh. Mukesh Singh, ADGP; Sh. Pandurang K Pole, Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir; Sh. Vijay Kumar, IGP Kashmir; Dr. Raghav Langer, Divisional Commissioner Jammu; and Choudhary Mohammad Yasin, Mission Director, NHM participated in the meeting, in person, and through virtual mode.
