bengal on Thursday saw 24 new instances of corona infection in the past 24 hours taking the total number of cases to 144, the State Government sources said adding 10 people had died due to the disease and 42 people had been cured in the State.
This, even as yet another medical college had to be partially shut down after a corona infected patient visited the maternity unit of the medical facility sources said.
The maternity unit of the NRS Medical College Hospital was closed and about 90 staff including 34 doctors and 54 nurses had to be quarantined after a patient was diagnosed with corona infection, sources said. Earlier the Calcutta Medical College and Calcutta National Medical College had to be partially closed down following corona infections in these hospitals.
According to latest reports 4,157 people had been quarantined in Bengal and little more than 37,600 people had been sent to home isolation in the State.
On whether the State Government had been pre-informed or consulted before four of its areas being declared by the Central Government as corona host spots, Chief Secretary Rajiva Kumar said the State Government was working according to the guidelines prescribed by the Centre.
“We are working with the same figure insofar as containment zones are concerned… They are calling some areas as containment zones and we have taken actions accordingly. Apart from this me have done some micro-planning to prevent the disease to extend further from the containment zone,” Kumar said.
The Centre had earlier declared 11 districts as corona sensitive in Bengal. Out of them Kolkata, Howrah, North 24 Parganas and East Midnapore had been identified as hotspots. Jalpaiguri, Kalimpong, Alipurduar, Hooghly, Burdwan West, South 24 Parganas and Nadia had been identified as orange zones, sources said.
Meanwhile Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has offered to send cash to the stranded migrant workers in States like Maharashtra. Referring to the blockade stage by the migrant workers at Bandra in Mumbai the Chief Minister said that many people in the crowd were from Bengal and she was trying to send them cash for the time being.
She however said she would not blame any government for the plight of the people saying “these are unprecedented times,” adding “it required to be known as to who spread the fake news saying trains were being provided to return
home.”
Saying that she had spoken to some stranded workers from Khar in Mumbai as also some areas in Gujarat Banerjee said that it was not possible to transfer money directly but she was trying whether the same could be transferred through the local contacts in those areas. On the people blockading roads at Murshidabad district demanding supply of essential items, the Chief Minister said “I have reports of some people not getting ration in some areas. Out of the total population 90 percent are getting their supplies. Only about 10 percent people have failed to get that for some problem. But we will ensure that they get it quickly… but there is no need to fish in troubled waters.”
Earlier on the day about out a thousand people blocked Murshidabad-Domkal highway demanding food saying they had not received supplies for the past 25 days.