SHILLONG: Retesting of the last active patient will be conducted within three days until a concrete result is found.
Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on Monday said that protocol requires to test the patient twice as towards the end of the 14-day period, the viral content in the swabs fluctuates.
“Medical protocol requires continuous testing within 48 hours and since the first test was negative and the second was positive, after three days a test has to done again”, he said.
“We will follow the protocol till we don’t get a concrete result that the test is negative”, he added.
The chief minister also held a review meeting with the superintendent and other staff of the Shillong Civil Hospital and discussed various situations and scenarios arising out of COVID-19 in the state.
The chief minister said that challenges would remain till a vaccine is found for COVID-19 adding that it is important for the medical team to be prepared.
He said the review meeting discussed how things have been in the past two-three weeks and the challenges faced.
“It was also to discuss about the coming days as the next few days will also be quite challenging with people coming back from the North East and after that from the rest of the country”, he added.
Meanwhile, the Deputy Chief Minister, Prestone Tynsong, informed that so far 1884 samples have been collected for COVID-19 out of which 1782 were negative and the government was still awaiting the results of 90 samples.
As for one-time financial assistance to the people stranded outside, Tynsong said that money has been disbursed to 7,900 out of 10,287 who applied for it and the process was on to transfer the money to the rest.
Tynsong also said that State Bank of India from Monday started disbursing money to 1,84,184 unregistered labourers who wanted government assistance of Rs 700 per week.