Team Herald
PANJIM: The Task Force on COVID-19 on Monday agreed to impose night curfew in the State even as no date was decided and to close classes VIII and IX and colleges from January 4 to 26 as recommended by the Expert Committee on Coronavirus.
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The meeting chaired by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant at the Minister’s Block conference hall, Porvorim, discussed measures to be taken to curb the spurt in COVID-19 cases and emergence of Omicron variant.
After the meeting, Sawant said that the government is considering to impose night curfew in the State but no date has been finalised for it. A detailed note about the restrictions will be issued by the government, he added.
However, Task Force Committee member Dr Shekhar Salkar said that the committee has agreed for night curfew from 11 pm to 6 am till January 26 in order to curb spike in COVID-19 cases in the State. He said that standard VIII and IX and colleges offline classes will be shut from Tuesday, January 4 to 26 and will be held in online mode.
However, students studying in standard X, XI and XII will have to attend schools as they are being given COVID-19 vaccine shots in their respective schools. Once they are vaccinated with the first dose they can stay at home and continue with online classes, he said adding that these students will have to answer their exams offline.
The Education department will issue a detailed order in this regard. Also the State government will release official COVID-19 appropriate behaviour and guidelines in this regard by Monday or Tuesday, he said.
Dr Salkar said that restrictions will also be imposed on indoor gatherings while, it will be relaxed for open air gatherings. He said that as of today the weekly positivity rate was 5.5 per cent and the situation was under control for now but next week will be crucial in terms of the trend the COVID-19 pandemic would display.
According to Dr Salkar, there is increase in numbers but there are mo in hospital admissions and deaths. Last were only four COVID-19 deaths were reported, which was much less than deaths reported in the previous week. Also two blocks of the GMC Super-Specialty Hospital will be kept for isolation and three blocks will be kept for admission of COVID-19 positive patients.
Dr Salkar further said that the Goa government will receive its first genome sequencing machine by January 15 and it will be established in the Goa Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), Bambolim. The machine will help the government to test samples and get report fast. The tests will tells us what type of virus and but the treatment will remain the same.
On the other, Health Minister Vishwajit Rane tweeted, Attended the task force committee meeting chaired by the Chief Minister @DrPramodPSawant along with expert committee members to discuss our plan of action to curb the surge in Covid-19 cases in the State of Goa.
We deliberated on various ways to ensure we don’t take any knee-jerk decision and ensure that citizens as well as tourists coming to Goa are safe. In view of the spike in other States, appropriate measure will be taken in sync the overall guidelines of Government of India.”
