PATNA: Bihar government will bear the cost of the treatment of people if diagnosed positive with coronavirus from the CM Medical Assistance Fund, chief minister Nitish Kumar said.
He also announced that the state government will give compensation of Rs 4 lakhs to the kin of those patients who succumb to the virus. Kumar was speaking in the state legislative Assembly.
"Coronavirus patients have been found in UP and Nepal. But there is no as such danger or need of being panicked over it in Bihar," the CM said, adding, about 100 additional ventilators will be installed in the state.
Kumar said that healthy people need not wear masks and safe social distancing should be followed by the infected people. “Generally one mask remains effective to 6 to 8 hours and after that it should either be burnt or buried deep in the earth”, he told the House quoting the guidelines of medical teams.
The CM said that proper screening along the Indo-Nepal border is carried out and suspected persons are placed under the “home quarantine”. As on March 16, 274 passengers, who arrived from different virus-affected countries, have been identified and placed under home quarantine.
Besides, all passengers at Gaya and Patna airports have been screened and none of them found positive with Covid- 19, the CM added.
Leader of Opposition Tejashawi Yadav lashed out at government. "Why the state has only one sample testing centre at Patna’s RMRIMS while they should be in all big cities such as Gaya, Muzaffarpur and Bhagalpur", he questioned. He asked the chief minister to sack health minister Mangal Pandey for his insensitive stand on COVID-19.
“Even after the ban was imposed on public gatherings and events, he went and attended party meetings. Is it not a clear cut act of defying the ban?” he asked. Yadav said that hospitals in the state are not in a position to cope the emergency of infections if any comes.
The Assembly session was adjourned till March 31 due to COVID-19 fears.