SHILLONG: For the second time, the ruling coalition and the Opposition in Meghalaya engaged in a brain-storming session to discuss about the COVID-19 situation in the state on Thursday.
In the review meeting a detailed presentation was made by the Chief Secretary on follow up of the last meeting held on April 25.
The presentation highlighted the summary of stranded citizens, detailed the entry protocol and gave an insight on the evacuation model being followed to bring back the stranded people from Meghalaya from various parts of the country.
Updates were also presented on the status of health infrastructure as well as the testing capacity.
Many suggestions were also offered, discussed and included.
Meghalaya Legislative Assembly, Speaker, Metbah Lyngdoh said that threadbare discussions was held and the leaders stand united to deal with the pandemic.
Stating that every suggestion is valuable, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma said that positive suggestions had come up during the discourse and the State government would look into it.
He said that the most important message was that all the leaders irrespective of their party affiliation were working together in this fight against COVID.
Leader of the Opposition and Congress leader Dr Mukul Sangma said that they had suggested few ideas and points to be incorporated in the fight against COVID which includes relooking and revisiting at the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) in certain situations.
He pointed out that keeping everyone coming from outside under home quarantine will also pose risk to the elderly in many cases who lives together.
The meeting decided to jointly urge the citizens of the State to provide sensitive support to all COVID-19 positive individuals and those probable cases and not to stigmatize any individual as the virus can affect any person.
“Accept the returning individuals and not stigmatise against them or their families,
not to be fearful of the virus and to follow the standard protocols relating to personal hygiene, hand washing, cough etiquette and social distancing,” the meeting appealed.
They asked the people to accept the returning individuals and not stigmatise against them or their families even as the meeting maintained that the Government protocols on guidelines are to be strictly followed.
Stating that most people affected by the virus will not need hospitalization and will recover by being under home isolation, the joint statement added that the Government was fully prepared to deal with all cases that may need hospitalization.
The joint statement also asked people to be respectful and kind to all the health care staff and other frontline workers.