Agartala: Expressing serious concern over the growing double strain Covid-19 cases, the health administration of Tripura advised the government to stop the entry of the outsiders into the state immediately; otherwise, the situation will go out of control soon.
Senior officers of the state health administration have opined that the state government has been advised several times in the last two weeks to restrict the entry from outside the state and if allows entry there have to be at least a weeklong institutional quarantine for the Covid negative people but the government yet to take any action.
“People whoever is coming to Tripura, carrying a Covid negative certificate, which are mostly unreliable and here government neither testing them again nor sending them to institutional quarantine. Whoever is advised to go for home isolation, they are not following it. Even the asymptomatic positive patients are roaming around in the city areas and spreading Covid-19. Despite knowing all the facts administration is not doing anything and creating hazard for others,” the officer stated.
He further stated that most of the senior officers of the state and central government from outside Tripura and relatives of political leaders who have been working in the state brought their family members and relatives here after all the major cities got infected at the community level. Those people have been roaming around, having fun in parks and adding extra pressure on the healthcare system.
“They are influencing the system and snatching away the service depriving the genuine patients. As on date at least 10 flights are landing in Agartala from different destinations including the Covid hotspots like Bangaluru, Delhi and Kolkata. Either they are buying Covid negative reports from the other cities or they are being tested in the airport but till the report comes, they spread the infection to the families and neighbours,” the officer mentioned.
The active Covid cases of Tripura is about 2200 and almost half of them are in Agartala and its surroundings. Maximum of the patients are having a travel history or someone in the family had travelled back or had contact history with a traveller. Now, Covid cases are increasing in other towns and spreading to the villages where there is no minimum health infrastructure, he observed.
Without stepping into combating the spread and restricting the unchecked exodus from Covid hotspots, Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb asserted that his government was adequately equipped to deal with any eventuality of Covid-19. All the district hospitals have been strengthened with Covid treatment infrastructure and a sufficient number of Covid Care Centers across the state.
All the district hospitals in Tripura will have Oxygen Plants from the end of this month and a plant of 1,050 litres per oxygen generation minute will be installed in Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital in the city by next two weeks were as many as 80 beds connected with the oxygen supply line, said NHM Mission Director Dr Siddhartha Shiv Jaiswal.
He added that the centre has allocated 500 oxygen concentrators for the north-eastern states after getting a consignment from Ireland. As many as 60 oxygen concentrators were delivered by Air force AN32 from Guwahati last evening. Besides, a massive vaccination drive has been undergoing in Tripura and maximum frontline workers and vulnerable groups of the society were already vaccinated.
Tripura is likely to start vaccination for 18 yrs plus a group from the last week of this month, Dr Jaiswal claimed.
