More areas declared containment zone in Manipur districts

Our Correspondent
Imphal, May 13 (EMN): Senapati district authority in Manipur has declared Senapati headquarters, Maram bazaar area, Tadubi town area and Mao town area as containment zone for eight days starting from May 14 for effective contact tracing to break the chain of Covid-19 transmission.

The district magistrate of Senapati, Mahesh Chaudhari, issued an order in this regard on Wednesday. The order will come into force from 3 pm of May 14 till midnight of May 22 or until further orders, whichever is earlier.

As per the order, there will be sealing of geographical area, restriction on entry and exit of population within the containment zone, active surveillance of Covid-19 cases besides banning the public gathering during the period of containment zone.

However, activities including vehicles carrying essential commodities such as oxygen supply, LPG, oil tankers and vehicles of other essential services will be exempted including works of both state and national projects in the district.

Medical institutions including pharmacies, people going for vaccination, Covid-19 testing and child protection services, movement of healthcare workers and frontline workers of various departments carrying out Covid-19 related duties as assigned by the district authority, home delivery of essential commodities including supplementary nutrition for children, pregnant and lactating mothers, food items, vegetables, groceries, fish feeds/animal feeds and milk products are also exempted.

At the same time the banking services with limited staff from 10 am to 2.30 pm, ATM services and vehicle repairing workshops along the National Highway-2 are also permitted.

The district magistrate of Tamenglong district, Armstrong Pame also issued a similar order in this regard on Wednesday to declare the whole area under Ward no. 1 to Ward no. 5 of the Tamenglong district headquarters for seven days as both Senapati and Tamenglong are hill districts.

The order will take effect from 6 pm of May 12 till midnight of May 19.

The above steps have been taken in view of the rapid rise of Covid-19 cases over the last few days despite utmost precautionary measures within the jurisdiction of the districts.

Curfew is also underway across seven districts of the state for 10 days until May 17. The districts are Imphal West, Imphal East, Bishnupur, Thoubal, Kakching, Churachandpur and Ukhrul.

On Wednesday, the state recorded the year’s highest single-day spike of 666 fresh cases and total fatalities of 17 Covid-19 patients.

However, on Thursday the state detected 560 new Covid-19 cases, out of 3,767 samples tested while 10 persons expired. With that, the state’s total Covid-19 positive cases have risen to 37,596 while the total death toll is 536.

Vaccination

Manipur has so far administered 2,91,152 anti-Covid jabs to the residents. Till date, 78,203 healthcare workers and frontline workers received second dose of vaccines.

On the other hand, the total number of healthcare workers vaccinated with the first dose of Covishield vaccine is 36,420 while 24,216 of them got the second dose, state Health department official said.

Similarly, 78,858 frontline workers received the first dose while 48,545 got the second dose of Covishield in the state.

The vaccination for journalists under All Manipur Working Journalists’ Union has also started at two centres in Imphal since Tuesday. So far, more than 150 journalists are vaccinated.

The vaccination drive for journalists began after the state chief minister declared journalists as frontline warriors on May 6. Vaccination in the state began on January 16, when only healthcare workers were being inoculated.

It was later expanded to include frontline workers in February. The second phase of the drive commenced from March 1.

People above the age of 60 and those above 45 are also availing the vaccination now.