People of Jharkhand are left scared after eight persons in four districts died due to Covid-19 infections on Friday. The deceased were from Ranchi and West Singhbhum (two each), three from Bokaro and one from Saraikela-Kharsawan. With this overall death toll from the first to the third phase has reached 5161.
Also, the number of active cases of Covid-19 is 17206 as across Jharkhand on Friday 3825 new cases were detected. Ranchi has the highest number of active cases (1543) followed by East Singhbhum having 593 active cases. However, it is not clear so far whether these deaths and fresh cases are because of the new variant Omicron as the Jharkhand government still doesn’t have the proper facilities to identify Omicron.
The lack of proper facilities to detect cases Omicron has posed a problem before the health department to draw a strategy for containment and treatment of cases.
Even Jharkhand High Court on Friday slammed the Jharkhand government and Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) for not having testing machines for Omicron.
The division bench comprising Chief Justice Ravi Ranjan and Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad asked whether the state government will purchase genome-sequencing machines only after the Omicron variant of coronavirus spreads throughout Jharkhand. The high court made the observation while hearing a suo motu PIL regarding the preparedness of the state government to tackle the pandemic. The court directed the Jharkhand government and RIMS to file affidavits regarding the status of the purchase of the genome sequencing machine.
In another development, state health minister Banna Gupa was tested positive for Covid-19. Gupta tweeted that he was feeling unwell for the past couple of days and has been tested positive.