SHILLONG: The state government, after a review meeting on Wednesday, directed the deputy commissioners to depute a team to visit the elderly people all over the state to ensure strict adherence to COVID-19 protocols.
Briefing reporters on Monday, Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong said that the government has issued directions to all the deputy commissioners and district medical health officers so that they can reach out to all 7000 community COVID-19 management committees as the purpose is to advise the elderly persons to take proper protection due to the spread of COVID-19.
“We had a review meeting and the major decision was to execute the protocols for elderly persons who are 60 years and above”, Tynsong said.
According to Tynsong, the headmen, who are part of the COVID management committees, can take initiative to meet the elderly people to convince them about the health protocol.
The community COVID-19 management committees can advise the elderly citizens who are suffering from various illnesses to take care, he said.
The government wants the committee to go to every household to hand over the protocols to the elderly people on how to protect themselves, he said.
The deputy chief minister said shops can open in rural areas but tea and rice stalls on national highways are not allowed.
Following a positive case in Tura, Shillong and Tura are now orange zones.
7100 persons return
Health Minister AL Hek said as many as 7100 people from outside the state have returned till Wednesday and the health workers visited 6769 of them in their homes.
The health minister informed that out of 3354 samples, 3158 tested negative and the results of 192 persons are awaited.
To a question on the positive case in Tura, Hek said contact tracing of the patient is on.
Hek said there are 307 high risk contacts and 1106 low risk contacts of the patient.
SOPs for entrants
The state government has issued Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for people entering Meghalaya from outside the Northeastern states.
The standard operating procedures state that all people coming from outside the state should pre-register themselves on http://meghalayonline.gov.in/covid/selfregistration and those who have not pre-registered themselves should register at the entry point through the Web App https ://coronamegh.cdfi.co.in.
All persons who enter the state at the designated entry points will be scanned by infrared thermometer or thermal scanner to detect body temperature. All persons who come from high risk areas where transport is facilitated by the state will be tested by Rapid Antibody Test Kits and RT-PCR and Pool testing method would be used, and if pool test is positive, retesting of the individual samples is to be done by RT-PCR/CBNAAT.
The government said all persons will be kept in institutional quarantine in their respective districts until test results arrive and in case of space constraints, they will be sent for home quarantine after sampling.
All persons coming in private vehicles to the state from outside Northeastern region will be sampled for RT PCR at the entry point and sent for home quarantine and sampling can be done either at quarantine, corona care centres or at facilities as designated by the districts and if the test result is negative, the persons will be sent home for quarantine.
All persons coming from outside the state should mandatorily undergo home quarantine for 14 days, using the home quarantine diary and additional 14 days of self-reporting would be done by them.
The SOPs also stated that persons who develop any symptoms in the 14 days’ quarantine period would be tested using RT-PCR test and those who test positive will be handled as per the COVID positive patient handling protocol of the government.
