Himachal Pradesh has implemented an aggressive influenza-like disease testing program (File)
Shimla:
The Himachal Pradesh government has extended the lockout to control coronaviruses in the state for another five weeks. An order from the BJP government led by Jai Ram Thakur said the lockdown will continue until June 30 in all 12 districts of the state.
Hills State has so far recorded 214 cases of coronavirus, of which 63 patients have recovered and five have died. Hamirpur district accounts for more than a quarter of the total cases in Himachal Pradesh.
While Hamirpur has reported 63 cases to date, Solan has 21.
The state lockout expansion comes as the rest of the country eases lockdown restrictions and the Center resumes air travel.
So far, only Maharashtra – which has the highest number of cases in the country – has spoken of extending the foreclosure.
The deadline for nationwide locking is May 31. The government has extended it three times since Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the nationwide lockdown on March 25.
In April, the chief minister supported extending the lockout across the country. He had made his views known to the Prime Minister during his videoconference with the chief ministers.
But he also supported the reopening of economic activities in the state, especially in the green zones, where there is little or no case of coronavirus.
The state has implemented an aggressive testing program for flu-like illnesses that make patients vulnerable to the coronavirus.
The Active Case Finding or ACF campaign – which helped screen the entire population of the state for any symptoms of influenza-like illness (ILI) – was even praised by PM Modi.
The state also tested all ILI patients for the coronavirus, pressing a huge team of 16,000 government officials and healthcare workers for a door-to-door campaign.
