Assam needs more vaccines, Himanta Biswa Sarma tells PM at video meet

GUWAHATI: Even though a low rate of vaccination continues to be a matter of concern for the northeastern states where many parts recorded a late surge in positive cases, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and other chief ministers of the region received praise from the Prime Minister for their efforts to combat the virus during a video-meet on Tuesday.


Modi lauded Sarma’s efforts to tackle the second wave, without announcing a statewide lockdown but with micro-containment zones with greater accountability on supervisors at the micro zones identified in areas with more

Covid

cases. Sarma, however, raised the demand for more vaccines for Assam as the inoculation drive is failing to pick up in the state despite the third wave threat looming large. Chief ministers of eight northeastern states, including Sikkim, attended the video-meet on the Covid-19 situation.

Sarma highlighted the importance of containing the pandemic in the tea garden areas of the state and informed the PM on the efforts taken to vaccinate the garden population at the earliest along with other measures. He also informed him about the status of medical oxygen production, ICU beds, oxygen beds and isolation wards for Covid-19 treatment.

The chief minister said the Assam government has followed the ‘Testing-Tracking-Treatment’ strategy of the Prime Minister and managed to contain the pandemic by declaring more than 6,000 micro-containment zones without going for a total lockdown. “Both the economy and Covid fight were sustained simultaneously,”

Sarma

said, exuding confidence that Assam’s positivity rate would be brought down below 1% at the earliest.

Three districts of Assam have been put under lockdown recently.