Assam Chief Minister Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma while reviewing the current situation of the COVID-19 pandemic in Janata Bhawan this evening through video conference asked the Deputy Commissioners (DCs) to back their COVID testing policy with aggressive vaccination strategy to sustain the decline of positive cases in the state.
It may be noted that the positive cases in the state in line with the national average over the last few days showed gradual decline. In this backdrop, Chief Minister Dr. Sarma during the video conference with the DCs and SPs asked them not to lower their guard and maintain strict adherence to several restrictions to sustain the downslide of the positive cases.
Chief Minister Dr. Sarma however, observed that since the positive cases are slowly drifting towards smaller towns, municipal areas and rural areas, there must be concerted efforts on the part of the DCs to do the vulnerability mapping based on the positive cases in block areas. The DCs thereafter must earmark priority vaccine areas to bring people strictly from the rural areas under vaccination coverage. This strategy will help the districts to reverse the spread of the pandemic to rural and tea garden areas.
He also asked the Deputy Commissioners to achieve total saturation in vaccinating the people in their respective districts. He also asked them to prepare district specific strategies to achieve 100 per cent inoculation as he assured them with adequate supply of vaccine doses in the coming days. Taking a look of a chunk of Anganwadi Workers and helpers who are still to be vaccinated, Chief Minister Dr Sarma asked the DCs to vaccinate the left over Anganwadi workers and helpers on an urgent basis. He said, this would help in saving other vulnerable sections like divyangjans, children and lactating mothers who might get the infections from them.
The Chief Minister asked the DCs and SPs to completely enforce the restrictions including curfew and inter-district movements to further reduce the positivity rate in their districts. He also asked the DCs of the districts where restrictions have been relaxed following dip in positive cases, to promulgate Section 144 to prevent assembly of people and take steps so that relaxation in the districts is not misused.
Chief Secretary Jishnu Baruah, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Samir Kumar Sinha, Principal Secretary Home Neeraj Verma, Principal Secretary Revenue Avinash Joshi, CEO ASDMA GD Tripathi, Mission Director National Health Mission Dr. Lakshamanan S and other senior officers of the government were present during the conference.