‘Except Meghalaya, cases declining in NE states’

GUWAHATI: A day after the Centre deputed multi-disciplinary teams to five states, which includes three NE states of Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura and Manipur that are reporting increased number of Covid-19 cases, DoNER minister Jitendra Singh on Saturday said there was progressive decline in the number of cases in the NE states, except Meghalaya.
The DoNER ministry, in a statement, said, “The minister expressed satisfaction that all the NE states are catching up with national average in terms of decline in positivity rate. Meghalaya is the only exception which witnessed a surge due to corona outbreak in a jail in district Ri-Bhoi.”
The statement added that the DoNER minister “was informed” that the test positivity rate in the NE region, which was 3.96% on June 30, has gone down to 2.94% on July 2, which was in tune with the national average declining from 2.34% to 2.09% during the same period.
Singh cautioned that decline in the active cases must be followed with greater thrust on vaccination and strict observance of corona protocol. He said he was in constant touch with all the eight chief ministers of NE states and whatever help is sought from the states is being promptly provided by the Centre. “The minister took note of the vaccine supply issues of the states of Nagaland and Manipur and directed the Union health ministry officials to address the same on an urgent basis,” the ministry stated.
Singh said what is worrisome is that in the last wave of the pandemic, the northeast had remained relatively unaffected by Covid compared to many other states and some states like Sikkim did not have a single corona positive case throughout the lockdown period. But this year, NE states have also witnessed significant rise in positive cases, he added.
Singh noted that during the first phase, all the eight NE states managed COVID-19 very effectively and the entire region emerged as a model of corona management in the country.