Covid: Visitors barred from entering Meghalaya Secretariat

Shillong: With rising cases of COVID-19 cases, the Meghalaya government has decided to impose restrictions on entry into the State Secretariat, the central seat of power in the State, which houses the offices of the Chief Minister, Cabinet ministers and senior government officials.
“In view of the sudden rise of positive cases amongst the working staff of Main, including Yojana Bhavan and additional buildings, no visitors will be allowed to enter the Secretariat Buildings with immediate effect from August 4 till further orders without proper authorisation from VIPs/officers,” Additional Chief Secretary in-charge Secretariat Administration Department, Donald Philips Wahlang said on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the deaths of seven Covid-19 inflicted persons, none of whom were vaccinated against the virus increased the fatality figure to 1,125 on Wednesday.
The State also reported 521 new cases of infection taking the number of active cases up to 5,516 active cases, even as 572 more recoveries surged the number of recovered cases to 60,375 in the State, which has registered 67,016 confirmed cases so far.
Director of Health Services (MI), Dr. Aman War said the deaths due to COVID-19 included four in East Khasi Hills district and one each in East Jaintia Hills district, South West Garo Hills district and South West Khasi Hills district.
He said the new COVID-19 cases detected included 238 in East Khasi Hills, 80 in West Khasi Hills district, 79 in West Garo Hills district, 44 in South West Khasi Hills district, 24 in West Jaintia Hills district, 19 in Ri-Bhoi district, nine in South Garo Hills district, eight in East Garo Hills district, six in South West Garo Hills district and four cases in East Jaintia Hills district.
The East Khasi Hills, which includes state capital Shillong is the most pandemic-hit district with 2,132 active COVID-19 cases, followed by West Garo Hills district with 783 active cases, West Khasi Hills district with 758 active cases, West Jaintia Hills district with 563 active cases, Ri-Bhoi district with 553 active cases and South West Khasi Hills district with 294 active cases, while the other districts have less than 200 active cases each.
Of the 8,65,374 persons tested for COVID-19 across the State till Wednesday, 7,98,358 persons were tested negative for the virus.
On the other hand, 31,858 heath care workers have been administered with the first dose of the vaccine against COVID-19 and 23,272 have received the second dose, 96,924 front-line workers took the first jab and 44,020 got the second shot, 7,76,890 persons from among the general public have been inoculated with the first dose and 1,39,843 citizens have been fully vaccinated with the second dose across the state till date, as per official information.