Open to extension of lockdown: Hek

SHILLONG: Wrestling with unabated spike in COVID cases, the state government is prepared to extend current lockdown in Greater Shillong area in the event of further escalation in number of positive cases this week.
On Monday when reporters asked Health Minister AL Hek, if the three-day lockdown would be further extended, he categorically said that, “The matter has been discussed with the Health experts and everyone is of the view that the lockdown should be extended if there is no improvement in the situation”.
He however said that before arriving at any such decision, the situation would be carefully assessed at the top level of the government.
There is already a public petition before the government advocating for extension of the lockdown period by another fortnight so as to halt the trend of rapid surge in active cases among the civilians.
Hek stoutly defended the decision of the state government to allow thousands of Meghalayans to return to the state even as he added that the majority of the COVID infected people in the state were the returnees.
Responding to a query as to what went wrong in the state in view of the sudden spike of cases even though the state was appreciated by the World Health Organization representative for its strategy, Hek said that “nothing went and even today the state is doing very well to contain the disease”.
“We are doing very well even now and everybody is working hard to contain the virus and the maximum number of cases which have increased in the state recently are from returnees,” Hek said while adding that the virus has not spread from the state.
When asked if it was a wrong decision to bring back the returnees, he said that the decision was correct as it is not appropriate to stop Meghalaya’s own people from coming back to their own state. “Many of our people who were working in different sectors and industries had to suffer as they closed down and livelihood and surviving for them was a big challenge, so we took the decision to allow them to return,” he said.
It may be mentioned that a little over 10,000 people hailing from the State had registered with the Government to return back to the state after they were stranded in different parts of the country but more than 23,000 people so far have returned to the state.