Cyber crime hotspot Jamtara without a Covid 19 fatality so far

Ranchi: At a time when Jharkhand’s death toll due to the Covid 19 is nearing the 500 mark, one of the state’s 24 districts has not reported a single fatality yet.
Jamtara, one of the state’s eastern districts which shares its borders with West Bengal, has reported a mere 519 Covid 19 cases since the pandemic broke out in Jharkhand on March 31. And while the state reported 496 deaths till Tuesday night, the district reported none.
Infamous for its cyber criminals who have siphoned off crores of rupees from bank accounts in the state and nationwide, Jamtara has a population of little over 9 lakhs. The district does not have a high end Covid 19 hospital and is dependent on PMCH Dhanbad for RTPCR tests of Covid 19 samples while Trunat machine and rapid antigen testing kits are being deployed to obtain quick results.
“We have not done anything out of the ordinary to contain the pandemic’s spread and simply followed instructions handed down to us by the state department of health, medical and family welfare. It is just sheer luck that we have low cases,” Jamtara deputy commissioner Faiz Ahmed Mumtaz said. According to Mumtaz, as many as 35,000 samples have been tested so far across the district through Trunat, RT-PCR and RAT kits.
At a time when districts like Ranchi, East Singbhum, Dhanbad and Bokaro are scrambling to add more Covid 19 isolation beds to house the growing number of patients, Jamtara’s overall bed capacity stands at 450. “We have identified and earmarked four government building complexes, namely an old age home, the Zila Parishad Building, an ITI building and a polytechnic building and kept it on stand by. At any given point, we can overhaul them into a hospital with a cumulative bed capacity of 600 beds,” Mumtaz said.
Declining the theory that the district is not testing enough, Mumtaz said: “We are not keeping our guard down. The inter-state and inter-district borders are being heavily guarded for any one who is arriving and they are being tested. That apart, awareness campaign is underway in full swing to apprise the denizens about the protocols,” he added.