Uttarakhand government prepared to deal with Coronavirus: CM Trivendra Singh Rawat

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat on Friday said the state government is fully prepared to deal with novel coronavirus. There are enough isolation wards, medicines, masks and quarantine facilities to tackle any situation, he said.

People entering the state from abroad are being screened at airports and those entering from neighbouring Nepal are being screened at eight points in the border districts, Rawat said.

"Though there has been no confirmed case of coronavirus in Uttarakhand so far, we are fully geared up to deal with any eventuality," he told reporters.

A total of 22,968 people have been screened at eight points in districts bordering Nepal, including Banbasa and Tanakpur in Champawat district, Dharchula, Baluakot, Jauljibi,  Jhulaghat and Dyura in Pithoragarh district  and Khatima  in Udham Singh Nagar district.

About 41,508 people have been screened at Dehradun, Pantnagar and Pithoragarh airports but no suspects were identified, Rawat said. 

Seventeen people have been kept under watch in isolation wards as a preventive measure in the state out of which 12 have tested negative and reports of five people, four of whom are from Dehradun and one from Nainital, are awaited, he said.

A total of 337 isolation beds are reserved for coronavirus cases at different hospitals and there are six quarantine facilities at Dehradun, Haridwar, Nainital, Udham Singh Nagar, Champawat and Pithoragarh, he said.

Though prepared to deal with the deadly virus we are keeping a vigil and we will take decisions as the situation requires, Rawat said.

The number of coronavirus patients in the country is 75, including the death of a 76-year-old man in Karnataka, the Union Health Ministry said on Friday.