Active COVID-19 cases shoot up to 44

SHILLONG: In ten days’ time, Meghalaya’s active COVID cases have shot up from 5 to 44 despite some stringent measures in place and community vigil.
On Monday, another 17 positive cases were reported in the state, 12 of which are from East Khasi Hills, three from Ri Bhoi and one from West Garo Hills.
An 8-month-old infant from Arunachal Pradesh succumbed to COVID-19 at NEIGRIHMS taking the state’s death toll to 2.
Informing this, Health Minister, AL Hek said that 12 cases are from East Khasi Hills — ten related to BSF personnel, one who attended the wedding at Greenwood Resort, Guwahati on June 26 last and another returnee from Assam.
Out of the 41 people who were part of the Guwahati wedding ceremony, he said that 38 people had been tested and all but one tested negative.
“We will be collecting the samples of the remaining three people who attended the wedding for testing,” Director of Health Services, Dr A War said.
When asked who had given the permission to such a large number of people to go to Guwahati for attending the wedding ceremony, he said that he will not be in a position to comment.
On the BSF positive cases, he said that those who were tested positive were admitted to Shillong Composite Hospital of the BSF.
“There are about 130 BSF personnel who are residing in the rented houses outside the BSF camps,” Dr War informed adding that they have issued ) clear instruction that the BSF personnel should not come out of their camps.
When asked if the government was planning to increase its testing capacity, Dr War said that the government was planning to increase its testing capacity adding that for the past one week, they had started RT-CPR tests in Pasteur Institute.
“We have got the Truenat Beta CoV test machines in all the district hospitals except in South West Khasi Hills and South West Garo Hills,” he added.
Meanwhile, in a stepped up surveillance along Assam-Meghalaya border, 508 rapid tests had been conducted in Khanapara and Byrnihat area and all had tested negative.
Dr War informed that the tests would continue until everyone was covered.
Overall, 21,846 samples had been tested and 21,223 tested negative. As per official records so far 20,282 people have entered the state from different parts of the country.
Chief Minister, Conrad Sangma, meanwhile, informed through social media that a total of 220 high-risk contacts of the BSF personnel were tested out of which 10 cases were found to be positive while the rest tested negative for COVID-19.