After uptick in cases, Kashmir to go for mock drill to check Covid preparedness

With Covid-19 cases recording a slight uptick in Jammu and Kashmir for the past few days, the health department in Kashmir will go for a mock drill to check pandemic preparedness on Monday while it has asked officers to increase testing and establish flu clinics at all health institutions.

A health update said that 31 fresh Covid cases were reported on Tuesday, 29 of them in Kashmir. The union territory has recorded a slight increase in Covid cases with Monday witnessing 40 infections, almost half of them in Kashmir, and 19 cases on Sunday -18 of them in Kashmir.

Director Health Kashmir, Mushtaq Ahmad Rather said that not many Covid cases were being reported. “There were 15 cases in Kashmir on Saturday, 18 on Sunday and 19 on Monday. There is not much rise but we have to be alert,” he said.

Rather said they will be going for a mock drill related to Covid preparations on April 10 in health institutions as per the directions from the Government of India.

“On April 10 we are going to recheck our oxygen generating equipment and everything relating to Covid. We will go for a trial run of oxygen plants and other systems in place. It will be a mock drill,” he said.

The directorate has also asked its chief medical officers (CMOs) to increase testing, including RT-PCR, and establish flu clinics at all the health institutions in every district as per the guidelines of ministry of health and family welfare.

“We have to establish flu clinics in every district. All symptomatic patients will be tested and those coming voluntarily will also be tested. We will also increase testing, that will tell us the spread,” he said.

So far, the testing rates in the union territory are very low, some 1,125 tests were conducted on Monday and 2,053 tests were done on Sunday. The active cases in the union territory till Monday are 166 of which 125 are in Kashmir valley.

Since the pandemic started, the overall cases in J&K have reached 4, 79,800 till Monday besides reporting 4,786 deaths.

The health director said that people need to take some precautions amid the emerging situation.

“We need to take precautions in gatherings, meetings and wear masks. Take preventive measures,” he said. “Otherwise, there is no deficiency of anything at government level to tackle the disease”.