HAILAKANDI, July 19 - With a spike in the number of COVID-19 positive cases in the community, the district administration has come up with new ways to deal with the grim situation in order to arrest further spread of the contagious disease in the community.
Convening an emergent meeting today with officials of the administration and concerned departments on the lawns of his office campus, Deputy Commissioner Megh Nidhi Dahal stressed on channelising all energies towards preventing further spread of the disease within the community.
Hailakandi district has already registered 719 positive cases till today evening. Of them, 22 are from the DC�s office, 22 police personnel and 12 from paramilitary forces. Some family members of the DC�s office employees were also found positive. Two persons died in the district due to COVID-19 infection.
Harping on a focussed effort to contain the disease at the community level, Dahal formulated setting up of a dedicated cell at IDSP Office for quick response to any positive case, contact tracing and containment of the area concerned.
A magistrate will be responsible for looking after a Covid Care Centre and making provision for increasing the number of bed strength in Covid Care Centre in view of spurt in the number of COVID-19 positive cases.
There has been detection of a number of coronavirus positive cases under the Rapid Antigen Test and Assam Targetted Surveillance Programme in the district. Many have been found positive without travel history, thus forcing the administration to close down haats and weekly markets, besides saloons and beauty parlours. It has also made compulsory for officials and employees to undergo swab test in the wake of detection of positive cases among the employees.
Apart from closing all business establishments, except chemist shops at 5 pm, the administration is also ruthlessly enforcing COVID-19 guidelines and night curfew from 7 pm to 7 am.
Deputy Commissioner Dahal asked all the officials concerned to gird up loins and to work in tandem to ensure timely and coordinated action to contain further spread of the disease in the community.
District Programme Officer of the District Disaster Management Authority, Rupjoy Maibangsa said the meeting which was convened at short notice by the Deputy Commissioner in view of the gravity of the situation, underscored the need to contain community transmission of COVID-19 pandemic in the district.
The meeting was attended, among others, by District Development Commissioner, Additional Deputy Commissioner, Health, Circle Officers, Sectoral Magistrates, BDOs, Branch Officer, DDMA, Joint Director of Health Services and District Surveillance Officer.
Incidentally, two persons succumbed to the infection on Saturday. In all, 11,617 persons from outside have arrived in the district so far. Presently, 312 persons are under facility quarantine centres and 5,992 under home quarantine.
