Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha today reviewed the Covid situation in J&K during a series of meetings with the members of the Covid Task Force, Deputy Commissioners, and SPs.Main line of defence is now vaccination. We have secured sufficient supplies to support vaccination and efforts should be made to maximise uptake, observed the Lt Governor.The Lt Governor set the timeline of one week for 100% coverage of the overdue 2nd doses.Emphasizing on the need to take effective and quick actions to minimize Covid-19 impacts, the Lt Governor termed rapid asymptomatic testing and contact tracing as important tools to help reduce the spread of the virus.Test, Trace, and Isolate mechanism remains critical to the district’s plan for tackling the pandemic, the Lt Governor said.The Lt Governor directed the DCs, SPs and Health department to strictly enforce Covid Appropriate Behaviour in Hospitals, Shopping complexes and other public places. He passed specific directions to the Health Department for monitoring all the relevant data on a regular basis for swift action.Instructions were also issued to the concerned officials to ensure that restrictions on the public gatherings continue, besides declaration of Red zones and micro containment zones in areas registering surge in positive cases on priority.While appreciating the efforts of the District Administrations for making tremendous efforts in the fight against covid on various fronts, the Lt Governor observed that the good practices must be replicated by other districts as well for a better outcome.During the meetings, the Lt Governor sought District-wise feedback on various critical aspects of covid management, and implementation of the directions passed in the previous meetings.The Lt Governor directed the DCs to regularly monitor the functionality of the oxygen plants in their respective districts and get the audit of OGPs done for operational readiness.The meeting also discussed the way forward for more effectively tackling and containing the spread of the infection across the UT.Sh. Vivek Bhardwaj, Additional Chief Secretary, Health and Medical Education Department briefed the chair about the district-wise analysis of Covid-19 situation, present status of positivity rate, testing, and vaccination across the UT. He informed that around 59% of the targeted population has received the second dose of Covid vaccine.Meanwhile, the Lt Governor also reviewed the situation of Dengue in Jammu and directed the concerned officials for effective prevention efforts.Additional Chief Secretary, Health informed the meeting that a central team is in Jammu to assess the on-ground situation in the UT.Sh. Rajeev Rai Bhatnagar, Advisor to the Lt Governor; Dr. Arun Kumar Mehta, Chief Secretary; Sh. Atal Dulloo, Additional Chief Secretary, Finance Department; Sh. Shailendra Kumar, Principal Secretary to the Government, Public Works (R&B) Department; Sh. Nitishwar Kumar, Principal Secretary to the Lt Governor; Sh. Mukesh Singh, ADGP Jammu; Sh. Vijay Kumar, IGP Kashmir; Dr. Raghav Langer, Divisional Commissioner Jammu; Deputy Commissioners and SSPs, attended the meetings, in person and through virtual mode.
