In an apparent view not to jeopardize the health of the senior officials and her office staff Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjeehas decided to virtually attend Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s event on Friday from her residence and not from the State Secretariat at Nabanna.
“Already a large number of officials including Kolkata Police Commissioner — Vineet Goyal — and top officers of the Health and other departments have been infected with corona … I do not want to jeopardize the health of more officers so I have decided to join the tomorrow’s meeting with the Prime Minister virtually from my residence,” the Chief Minister on Thursday said.
The Prime Minister is likely to inaugurate the second campus of the Chittaranjan National Cancer Hospital through video conferencing. The Hospital, a part of the Prime Minister’s vision to upgrade the country’s health infrastructure has been a joint venture. “We too have contributed towards the construction of this hospital,” the Chief Minister said.
Warning that coming two weeks were crucial in view of the rising corona (Omicron) cases the Chief Minister said that the State Government would be forced to impose more stringent measures if people failed to follow pandemic protocols and if the corona graph continued to rise as it has been over the past one week or so.
More than 45,000 people had been affected by the disease in Bengal inthe past few days, the Chief Minister said adding 2,075 people werecurrently being treated in hospitals. The Government had earmarked 403containment zones in the State, she said. About 32,000 beds had been kept ready in various hospitals. This is in addition to the 4,000 CCU beds she said. Banerjee said that the positivity rate had gone beyond 23 percent and daily corona cases were hovering above 14,000 cases per day.
Banerjee said about 10.07 crore people in Bengal had been vaccinated adding 4,56,138 teenagers between the age of 15-18 too had received their first dose.
Meanwhile the Bengal Government through its Advocate General SN Mukherjee on Thursday informed the Calcutta High Court that there was no problem on its part to organize the Ganga Sagar Mela and that allarrangements had been put in place for India’s second largest suchfare to take
place.
Petitioner, a doctor however pleaded before the Court that if the Government could postpone holding of the Kolkata International Film Festival because a few film celebrities had been infected with the corona virus then how the Government was preparing to go ahead with the grand fare that could see more than 5 lakh people going to theplace for a holy bath.
The Court had reserved its order and could pronounce it order in the first hour of Friday, advocates appearing for both the sides said.