Shillong, July 8: Despite rigorous containment measures and keeping most part of the state under strict lockdown for over 2 months, Meghalaya continues to report daily Covid-19 cases around 500 and a positivity rate of over 10 per cent. The state is one of the few states in the country with high positivity rate. This is concerning because the daily caseload across the country has dropped drastically in the last few weeks.

However, Meghalaya government is not upset over this instead taking it constructively to identify new cases so that transmissions can be minimized. Also, the government wants to project an honest picture of the COVID situation in the state instead of trying to paint a picture that all is well.

Director of Health Services, Dr Aman Warr on Thursday said, “The people whom we suspect to be positive, we test them, and they are coming out positive. That is how we can contain the virus. If I want that positivity rate to come down, there are lots of people, and lots of them will come out negative, and few will be positive. We want to show the real picture.”

According to him, until last year, coronavirus was only one paragraph in textbooks. “Why it became virulent is another topic altogether. Why has it mutated so fast? We have to study that. But the situation regarding this particular pandemic is not good,” he said.

He added that in the end, it comes back to the three points – masking, social distancing and hand sanitisation. Everyone must follow these so that lockdown is relaxed.

He also mentioned that cases in Meghalaya have plateaued, and the state has maintained that graph. “Compared to what happened two months back, the situation now is much better, but we can’t let our guard down. We have to continue doing what we have been doing for the past three months so that the situation is better than what it is now,” he stressed.