DELHI: On Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged all the chief ministers to get ready for Unlock 2.0, as the nation’s collective fight against the deadly coronavirus pandemic is far from over, along with this, he also made an urge to “fight the rumours” while being mindful of the challenges.
“All speculations about the Centre re-imposing lockdown to curb the coronavirus are merely rumours” said PM Modi in the virtual video conference.
As the recovery rate of India is in much better position standing at 52%, PM asked CMs to highlight the positive outcomes among people. He said “We must battle fear and stigma by highlighting the high number of those who are recovering from the virus”.
Since the spread of COVID-19 is more in a few big states and cities, the chief ministers were urged to make full use of their state’s existing testing capacity and also work to augment health infrastructure.
In some cities, battle against coronavirus has become “more challenging” because of big crowds, lack of physical-distancing, daily movement of a large number of people and small houses.
“The CMs thanked the PM for his leadership and briefed him about the ground situation in states & their preparedness to tackle the impact of Coronavirus. They talked about health infrastructure available to meet the challenge & steps taken to strengthen it further,” the PMO said.
Even though, we’ve so far been quite successful in our fight against the virus under the leadership of the PM, but the battle is far from over said Amit Shah, who was also a part of the video conference which discussed the situation post Unlock 1.0 and planned for tackling the COVID-19 pandemic.
The CMs were told by the PM to focus on phase 2 of the Unlock process, while at the same time, how to minimise any possibilities of harm to citizens.
While ensuring that basic rules like wearing a mask, maintaining hygiene, and observing social distancing are followed strictly, a strong hint of further opening of the economy was given by the PM on Tuesday on the first day of his interaction with the CMs.
“We have to always keep in mind that the more we can stop the corona, the more it will stop growing, the more our economy will open, our offices will open, the markets will open, the means of transport will open, and so will new employment opportunities,” he had said.
Due to timely intervention, the exponential growth of the pandemic is able to stop in India. Very few patients are in need of ICU or ventilators, but special emphasis was given to increased testing, and the need to expand the same health infrastructure.
On Wednesday, the key states like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar and Telangana were the part of the conference.