KOLKATA 8 APRIL: On a day when Calcutta High Court has asked West Bengal government to file an affidavit on the number of deaths in COVID19 after a PIL was filed that West Bengal government is suppressing the deaths due to COVID 19 in the state, chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday claimed that a total of around 200 attendees joined Tablighi Jammat and out of around 200 attendees , 108 are foreigners and around 69 attendees are from Bengal.
However, she refused to divulge any details on whether anyone has been tested positive for COVID-19 or any death has been reported amongst the attendees.
Banerjee said: “I urge everyone not to politicise the matter. The incident happened on 13 March and Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of External Affairs did not share the information before. When we came to know about the incident, we immediately ramped up and within six hours we started identifying the attendees and put them in quarantine facilities. The entire process of monitoring is done by the West Bengal heath department.”
“I have observed for the past few days a section of media and Opposition parties are trying to politicise the Tablighi Jammat event and trying to blame the state government for suppressing the figures of COVID19 positive patient who came from Nizamuddin Markaz. We are not suppressing any figures. We are keeping the media updated with every information.” Banerjee added.
It may be mentioned that Banerjee has faced criticism from Opposition parties who claimed that Banerjee is suppressing figures of positive COVID19 case in the state.
Miss Banerjee also said that she spoke with the chief minister of Punjab and the chief secretary of Bihar spoke with West Bengal chief secretary over the need of the jute products .
“Although there is demand for jute products from Bengal we have told them that we have not allowed the jute manufacturers to start manufacturing product and till now we have not yet decide to open the jute mills,as there are chances of infection if many people were allowed to work together,” Banerjee added.
In Bengal, two more positive cases were reported on Wednesday taking the toll to 71. Out of the 71, 61cases are from 11 families.
With 61 positive cases from 11 families, senior doctors advised the West Bengal government that to stop the spread of the local transmission, there is a need for an aggressive region-wise quarantine and to follow strict social distancing measures.
Dr Sukumar Mukherjee, senior medicine specialist and a member of the Global Advisory board which was formed for COVID-19 said: “We feel that there is a need for regional quarantine where specialists will isolate the people if they found symptoms of the virus to stop the local spread. As we have seen that 61 positive patientd are from 11 families, we feel that there is a need for regional quarantine to stop the spread of the disease within family members .”
Dr Abhijit Chowdhury, senior gasterentologist, and another member of the task force, said: “After this pandemic ,senior researchers and doctors of West Bengal government are examining whether the blood of those COVID-19 patients who have been cured can be taken, processed and used on other positive patients for cure.”
West Bengal government has formed three task force to tackle COVID-19 crisis.
Taskforce 1) Restriction & Relaxation Taskforce under the leadership of chief secretary Rajiva Sinha
Taskforce 2) Economic Taskforce under finance secretary HK Dwivedi.
Taskforce 3 )Enforcement Taskforce under Home Secretary Alapan Bandhyopadhyay