Even as the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) cases are continuing to surge in many States of the country no new patient of the dreaded disease was found for third consecutive day on Saturday in Uttarakhand. The figure of the COVID-19 cases in the State is static at 35 in the state from last three days. Five patients of the disease have already recovered and have been discharged from the hospitals.
In an important development the State Government has gone ahead on its announcement to set up, a 500 bed prefabricated COVID-19 hospital in Haridwar district. On Saturday, the government acquired 500 acres of land in village Miserwala, Devpur. The additional secretary, medical health and family welfare department, Yugal Kishore Pant said that the department would set up a 500 bed prefabricated hospital for the COVID 19.
Pant said that that reports of 93 suspected patients of the disease were received by the department till 5 pm on Saturday all of them were found negative for the disease. He said that reports of 330 samples are still awaited.
Pant added that a total 1705 samples of suspected patients of the disease have so far been taken for COVID-19 test in the two labs of the state. On the day, samples of 112 suspected patients was taken and sent to the labs for test. From Haridwar district 40 samples were collected while from Uttarkashi 34 samples were collected on Saturday.
Similarly 30 samples were collected from Dehradun by the department.
Pant informed that 2,696 people are kept in institutional quarantine and 372 suspected patients are in hospital isolation in different parts of the State. A total of 55,631 people are in home quarantine in different parts of the State.
Pant claimed that the state has adequate stock of N-95 masks and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). “We have 33,000 N-95 masks and 23,000 PPE in our stock,’’ he said.
With an objective to provide relief to the patients needing regular dialysis, Divyang and those needing critical care during the period of lock-down, the State government announced on Saturday that such patients would be transported to the hospitals by 108 emergency ambulance service.
These ambulances would drop them to their homes also. The decision was taken in wake of many complaints that patients suffering from critical disease and Divyangs are facing problems to visit the hospitals due to lockdown.