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.Chief Secretary, BVR Subhramanyam, Financial Commissioner, Health, Atal Dulloo, Principal Secretary, HUDD, Dheeraj Gupta, Divisional Commissioner, Jammu, Sanjiv Verma, MD, JPDCL, Yasha Mudgal, Deputy Commissioner, Jammu, Sushma Chauhan and SSP, Jammu, Sridhar Patil, MD NHM, Bhupinder Kumar, and Municipal Commissioner, Jammu Municipal Corporation, Ms. Avny Lavasa attended the meeting.While discussing the evolving situation due to spread of coronavirus in the country, the Cabinet Secretary emphasized the States/UTs to prepare a containment plan keeping in view the situation in their respective States so that the measures are taken in time to fight with Covid-19.It is a time for taking our preparations to next level and lockdown period provides us all a window of opportunities to act positively and make ourselves ready to face any kind of eventuality, the Cabinet Secretary maintained.Cabinet Secretary lauded the efforts of District Collectors in managing the situation and asked them to undertake containment activities in their respective districts. He emphasized on meticulous planning and implementation of containment plan to minimize spread of virus.He directed for aggressive tracing, testing exercise and putting people in isolation/quarantine to control further spread in the communities. Our priority should be saving lives of people and that can be done only if we implement the action plan seriously, the Cabinet Secretary added.
Cabinet Secretary asked the District Collectors to adopt good practices being implemented by other DCs to fight Covid-19 in their respective areas. He said that 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. The District Surveillance Teams and Rapid Response Teams should be fully alert and functional to ensure that every suspect is traced and tested without any loss of time.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.Cabinet Secretary reiterated that every support is being provided by the Government of India and assured the States/UTs for any kind of help they need in dealing with coronavirus.