Shillong, June 3: Meghalaya Chief Minister, Conrad K. Sangma has appealed to people to not let their guards down just because the daily caseload is declining and the recoveries are increasing. At the same time, he remained non-committal on the queries to ease the lockdown in the East Khasi Hills District.

He informed that the official meeting to review the COVID-19 situation in the state will take place in a day or two, and the government will decided on the relaxations and restrictions for next week based on the trend and the number of cases. However, he said some sort of restrictions will be there.

East Khasi Hills district has been under lockdown since the first of May but has seen episodes of total lockdown since the May 5, with the latest one extended to 5 AM of June 7. The district has so far detected 22,115 cases of which 2814 are active while 18,802 have recovered as well as recording 499 deaths.

“The recoveries are going up. But it does not mean that we can let our guards down. So, we will see the trend and we will see the numbers, especially the positivity rate, hospitalization. We will also see if there is any specific growth in any areas… all those aspects need to be examined. But, all said and done, some sort of restrictions will still be there. The question is where we can allow more activities to take place,” he told reporters here on Thursday.

Support to people

Regarding the impact of the pandemic on the economic activities of the people, the chief minister said that extending relief is an issue that is being examined and discussed a number of times in the meetings of the government.

“As a government, we do realize that we need to provide wherever we can support during these difficult times. The difficulty obviously in this whole situation is that the scale will be very large; so, if we support, it needs to be for everybody. (Moreover) the challenges of finances are also there which are not that great for the country as a whole. Keeping both these factors in mind, it is not very easy,” he explained.

“It is something that obviously we would want to do and it is something that the government must also try its best to do,” he added.

The chief minister said that the government wherever possible has tried to support through the MLAs by releasing certain funds to them besides increasing the support through the MHIS, extending ex-gratia payment to next of kin of those who died due to COVID-19.
Economic Impact of lockdown (sub-heading)

The chief minister also expressed that unlike the last time where there was complete lockdown and closure of everything, this time they have employed a selective process wherein effort has been made to minimize the economic impact on the people.

“Unlike last time where we went for a complete lockdown and closure of everything, this time it was a very selective process where we tried to see how we could minimize the economic impact on the people,” he said.

He added that agriculture and farming activities were also allowed to an extent with restriction. “We also allowed the MGNREGA works to continue in some areas with restrictions of course. We try to minimize the impact on the grassroot,” he said.