India News | Fully Geared Up to Deal with Rise in COVID-19 Cases: Pb Govt
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. Amid rising number of COVID-19 cases, the Punjab government on Saturday said it is fully geared up to effectively deal with further spread of the disease with requisite bed capacity and ventilators in hospitals, and adequate arrangement of PPEs, masks, and testing kits.
Chandigarh, Jul 25 (PTI) Amid rising number of COVID-19 cases, the Punjab government on Saturday said it is fully geared up to effectively deal with further spread of the disease with requisite bed capacity and ventilators in hospitals, and adequate arrangement of PPEs, masks, and testing kits.
"The state government is well prepared with requisite bed capacity, ventilators in hospitals besides having adequate arrangements of PPE kits, masks and testing kits to deal with increasing COVID cases,” said chief secretary Vini Mahajan in an official release.
She was taking stock of the medical infrastructure and arrangements in hospitals across the state in health institutions in the wake of increasing COVID-19 cases.
Stressing that the situation is under control and people need not panic, the chief secretary urged the people to strictly adhere to health and safety protocols including maintaining social distancing, proper wearing of masks, washing hands frequently to contain coronavirus.
Mahajan, who also heads the state COVID19 management group, mentioned that senior officer of civil administrations had been deputed as nodal officers in all the districts with senior IAS officers Sumit Jarangal and Tanu Kashyap deputed as state nodal officers to oversee the daily number of cases to make available the requisite medical infrastructure well in time.
The group is an inter-sectoral group to ensure synergized efforts from all departments and stakeholders.
A state public health advisory group under the Chairpersonship of K K Talwar has also been constituted with the state epidemiologist as the Convener.
She stated that the deputy commissioners had also been tasked to liaison with private hospitals in the districts to increase the availability of dedicated beds for treatment of COVID-19 patients, which had so far resulted in ensuring nearly 2,000 beds.
She also revealed that the aggressive testing had already been initiated in the hotspot districts to further keep the coronavirus under check.
For level two and three, as many as 5,000 beds are already available across the state, said Mahajan.
The state government has already augmented its Covid care capacity for mild asymptomatic cases, under 60 years of age, with operationalisation of new level-1 Covid Care Centres (CCCs) with a total capacity of 7,520 beds in 10 districts.
Similar centres with 100 beds each, would be opened soon in the remaining 12 districts, the chief secretary added.
The new Covid Care Centres are running in meritorious schools or other institutions and their capacity can be enhanced to 28,000 beds if the cases surge further, she further said.
They are being managed by the district administrations and health department and are being used to keep positive patients having none of any symptoms, and without any comorbidity like chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension, in isolation.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)