Manipur govt. decides to extend lockdown for 15 more days

Our Correspondent

Imphal, June 28 (EMN): Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Sunday announced that the government had decided to extend the lockdown for another 15 days from July 1-15. The ongoing lockdown is scheduled to conclude on June 30.

Addressing a press conference, Singh said that the government had also decided to open inter-district bus service from July 1 by maintaining SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) and guidelines issued by the government. No other public transport systems would be allowed during this period, he added.

He appealed to the people to strictly adhere to the SOPs and guidelines issued by the government to overcome the Covid-19 pandemic.

Deputy Chairman, State Planning Board S Rajen and MLA Th Satyabrata (Yaiskul) were present during the press conference.

Singh said that the state has 1092 Covid-19 positive cases including 660 active cases. Total recovered cases are 432.The recovery rate is 39.56 %, he added. He further maintained that the testing capacity had increased to nearly 2600 tests per day by getting new machines and engaging more persons. ‘More than 50,000 samples have been taken, including for re-test and for testing frontline workers till now.

Almost all test results have been declared’, he added.

Singh mentioned that in order to supplement testing capacity, TrueNat machines have been procured. At present there are two machines at RIMS, one machine at JNIMS, two machines at IRL Imphal, two machines at Senapati, one machine at Tamenglong and one installed in Ukhrul.

Informing that there is no case of community transmission of the disease in the state, Singh said that almost all positive cases are from returnees except seven frontline workers who were in direct contact with positive cases.

Till date, around 43,000 persons have completed quarantine while around 7200 inmates are presently in quarantine centres.

Mentioning about the present capacity of beds in the state to treat the Covid-19 patients, he said at present, 150 beds in JNIMS, 100 beds in RIMS, 350 beds in Covid Care Center Meitram, 100 beds in Ukhrul are functional as Covid Care Facility, in addition to isolation wards and Covid beds in each district hospital.

He maintained that work is going on for adding another 750 beds in various facilities, namely in Senapati Trauma Centre-50 beds, Imphal West  Family Welfare Training Centre – 100 beds, Thoubal GNM School-100 beds, Lamboikhongnangkhong Trade Centre-300 beds, Kangpokpi BIET- 50 beds, Churachandpur NIELIT – 100 beds and Tamenglong- 50 beds. On the other hand, he said around INR 18.22 crore out of INR 24.4 crore from chief minister’s Covid-19 relief fund, has been spent in dealing with the lockdown situation in the state.