SHILLONG, April 23: Leader of the Opposition Mukul Sangma on Friday censured the state government for not being prepared to tackle the COVID-19 situation.
“The number of beds is not enough. Are we prepared? No. We need to do much more to ramp up our capability to deal with this challenge,” Sangma said.
Pointing out that the state had a lot of advantage being a frontier state with the exception of the Guwahati-Shillong road and the Jowai-Silchar road, the former CM said, “Movement on the roads should be regulated. It is high time for us to ensure that all necessary facilities are in place, adequate number of beds should be arranged and all necessary wherewithal required by the medical fraternity should be provided to them.”
Stating that there are no designated corona centres to tackle a large number of positive cases, he said, “If people require medical attention where are they going to go since you have limited beds. What about those families who cannot be isolated in their respective houses?” Sangma questioned.
He also advised the state government to adopt more stringent measures to enforce the different protocols and SOPs as was done during the first surge last year.
On the state government’s strategy to vaccinate 80 per cent of the population, Sangma said, “In view of the mutations, the vaccination will allow us to contain the speed of transmission but at the same time one has to be careful of how the mutated virus is going to impact those who receive the vaccine.”
