Nitish Kumar Chairs High-Level Meeting To Review COVID-19 Situation In Bihar

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was accompanied by state health minister Mangal Pandey and top officials of the state at the meeting here, while District Magistrates were connected through video conferencing.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today chaired a high-level meeting in Patna to review the coronavirus situation in the state and directed officials to pull up their socks to contain the recent spike in COVID cases owing to "second wave" of the pandemic. Mr Kumar said that there was a possibility of return of migrants from worst-affected states and, as such, officials must set up quarantine centres at block levels on the lines of the ones which were established last year when millions had returned home after losing their jobs and homes during the nationwide lockdown. He also reaffirmed the need for raising testing rate in the state, which had come down to about 20,000 samples per day recently in view of a dip in the incidence during winters, by five times. He pointed out that aggressive testing and isolating, by means of setting up containment zones in the worst-affected zones, along with the ongoing vaccination drive will help the state overcome the sudden rise in coronavirus cases.