Chief Minister Hemant Soren home quarantined himself and prohibited entry of visitors in his residence on Wednesday, a day after a Minister in his Cabinet and an MLA from his party tested positive for Covid-19, officials from Soren’s office said.
Drinking water and Sanitation Minister Mithilesh Thakur, a Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) legislator from Garhwa, was among the 141 people who tested positive for Covid-19 on Tuesday. Besides Thakur, JMM MLA from Tundi, Mathura Mahto and 18 scribes from Dhanbad also tested positive on Tuesday.
The Chief Minister took to microblogging website Twitter on Wednesday to convey that he has quarantined himself at home as a precautionary measure. “Two of my colleagues from the Jharkhand Assembly have tested positive for Covid-19 recently. I have decided to quarantine myself at home as a precautionary measure,” his tweet said.
“As a precaution, I will also be in self-isolation for the next few days from today. In this sequence, I will execute all the necessary tasks. You can talk to me through social media too. I appeal to all the people of Jharkhand to strictly follow the government rules and instructions. Take care of yourself, children, sisters, daughters, brothers, sons and elders,” he stated.. While speculation was rife that chief secretary Sukhdeo Singh has also home quarantined himself as a precautionary measure, Singh clarified that he had neither met Mithilesh Kumar nor Mathura Mahto in the past one month. “I have not met any of the infected MLAs in the past one month, so there is no need for me to quarantine myself,” he said.
Thakur and Mahto are undergoing treatment at Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) after testing positive for Covid-19, officials from the chief minister's office said.
Meanwhile, at least 78 fresh cases of Covid-19 infection, including 10 from Ranchi and 23 from Dhanbad, surfaced in Jharkhand on Wednesday, a bulletin released by the National Health Mission (NHM) stated. The findings take the count of Covid-19 cases in State to 3134, the bulletin further said.
As many as 66 patients, including 27 from East Singhbhum, recovered from Covid-19 infection on Wednesday and were discharged from hospital. The recovery rate in Jharkhand dropped to 69.24 per cent on Wednesday, the NHM bulletin highlighted.
Novel Coronavirus has claimed at least 22 lives in Jharkhand so far. The last five deaths were reported this week itself. However, no casualties were reported on Wednesday by the time this report was filed.
The Government has collected samples of 1.69 lakh suspects so far and tested 1.64 lakh of them. Around 2.7 lakh people are in home quarantine in Jharkhand while around 30,000 have been sent to institutional quarantine.