Patna: Amid coronavirus surge and experts prediction that cases may further increase in the coming days, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar Monday held a high-level review meeting on COVID situation and issued order to further ramp up test of samples and ensure timely delivery of reports so that treatment of the infected can start at the earliest.
Kumar also instructed officials to take all steps to meet the requirment of medical oxygen for critically ill patients in the government as well as private COVID designated hospitals.
“If the requirement of medical oxygen is more than what the Centre has alloted to Bihar than the state government will arrange it at its own expense,” he said, according to an official statement.
Deputy Chief ministers-Tarkishore Prasad and Renu Devi- Health minister Mangal Pandey and senior officials including Principal Secretary of the Health department Pratyaya Amrit attended the meeting to take stock of the COVID scenario.
The chief minister instructed that all the police officials from the state who have gone to poll-bound states should be clinically examined on return.
After the second wave of coronavirus hit Bihar like in other parts of the country, Kumar had instructed to scale up test of samples to above one lakh from around 20,000 it had plummeted before the virus sudden spike.
Bihar had on Sunday tested 1,00,491 samples while over 2.59 crore citizens have been clinically examined for the virus so far.
Another issue which the CM emphasised once again is timely delivery of test reports.
Inordinated delay in delivery of reports of RT-PCR tests is common complaint of people in Patna and other parts of the state.
Bihar is witnessing over 12,000 coronavirus cases on a daily basis for the past few days.
A total of 12,795 new cases were reported on Sunday, taking the overall caseload of Bihar to 4,03,590.
Kumar also underlined speeding up inoculation work in the state.
A total of 66,18,029 people have been given the jabs till Sunday.
The chief minister directed officials to engage retired medicos,dentists and also those practising ayush or unani system of medicine in fight against the deadly disease.
He laid stressed on intensifying awareness drive against COVID with the use of mikes in the villages along with other means to make people understand the danger of the disease and help them observe COVID protocol for safety.
The chief minister gave instruction to expedite distribution of free masks to people in the villages and urban civic bodies areas.
The state government has been making available four masks and a shop to every households in villages and urban municipality areas.
The task has been given to the Panchayati Raj Institution and Uraban Development departments.