Shillong, March 18: Faced with a surge in Covid-19 cases across the country and the likely repeat of the traumatic days of the pandemic that struck like a tsunami at the start of last year,
Meghalaya Government has decided to restart RT PCR tests on people coming into the state from coronavirus high-risk states such as Maharashtra, West Bengal, Karnataka, Kerala, Gujarat and others.
A decision to this effect was taken after this week’s all-important meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief ministers of all the states.
“We have decided that the people coming in from some of the very high-risk zones like Maharastra and a few other states will have to undergo the mandatory RT PCR Tests and a notification has also been given out,” Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma told reporters on Thursday.
Stating that other states can adopt the Meghalaya model in terms of Coronavirus management, Conrad Sangma said, “You may have noticed that we are making it mandatory before people coming into the state to get tested and those who don’t have COVID free certificates are tested at the entry point. That is the only way to do it and this entire process of first starting this registration of the tourists coming in has also helped us a lot.”
The chief minister was optimistic that this Meghalaya model can be adopted by many other states for the long haul because it will help in conducting the contract tracing very quickly in the future and also keep a track of the overall tourists who are coming into the state.
Dwelling briefly on the meeting between the prime minister and state chief ministers, Conrad Sangma mentioned that the Prime Minister was very particular on the fact that since travel is taking place we need to ensure a very strong watch on the travel aspect.
“Prime Minister has also asked the states to ensure information is maintained on the travellers and the tourists that are moving around,” said the chief minister.
Boosted by last year’s well-organised and systematic screening in Meghalaya leading to containing the outbreak of the pandemic at an early stage, the chief minister reiterated that Meghalaya is better prepared and the predictability even better.
“The steps taken by our state government in the beginning itself ensured containment of the outbreak. Now another outbreak is striking once again across the country. When the first wave began it was on a similar pattern so this is the reason why our honourable prime minister has called an emergent meeting yesterday. We cannot allow that situation to repeat itself,” Sangma said while referring to the emergent meeting that Prime minister Narendra Modi hold with the Chief ministers of different states.
