Odisha:Cannot Go Back To Lockdown Era, CM Stresses To Contain Spread Of Covid-19 Through Renewed Efforts

Bhubaneswar (Reporters Today Bureau): Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday stressed ensuring the renewed efforts in awareness and enforcement to contain the spread of coronavirus instead of entering into any further lockdown restrictions.

“We cannot go back to the era of lockdowns. However at the same time, we need to ensure that the virus spread is also contained through renewed efforts in awareness and enforcement,” said the Chief Minister while addressing the meeting of Chief Ministers convened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He added “As a country with a huge population, achieving herd immunity will be a long process and in the meantime, we all need to be extremely careful,”

Patnaik said the government has been able to manage the pandemic and limit its damage to a large extent with the cooperation of the people of Odisha.

He informed, during the crisis health and administrative system is continuously working day and night and the roll-out of the vaccine has been helpful in providing hope to the citizens

“We are ever grateful to the scientific community for developing vaccines at such short notice. It’s a matter of pride for us that India is leading in vaccine manufacture. We need to involve further the private sector in expediting the vaccination programme,” he maintained.

“The long period of this crisis has brought fatigue and complacency in following Covid health protocols. We need to be careful as multiple surges of Covid spread is the reality in many countries and as witnessed in many states in India as well,” he said.

“We will continue to extent all support to the Union Government in this fight against Covid,” the CM maintained.