Meghalaya govt, opposition make key suggestions at special Covid meet

GUWAHATI: At a meeting of government and opposition parties in Meghalaya, suggestions were made to provide sensitive support to all COVID-19 positive individuals and probable cases, and not to stigmatize any individual.

Both the Government and Opposition leaders took part in the meeting to discuss the prevailing situation. A detailed presentation was made by the Chief Secretary detailing the steps taken by the Government relating to management of the Covid-19 situation, movement of essential commodities, distribution of food grains, relief measures and other steps being taken by the Government.

The government highlighted increase in testing capacity since the detection of the first COVID-19 positive case. The capacity of RT-PCR testing is being increased from 90 to 370 by mid-May. 50,000 antibody RD kits will be available by first week of May.



The government stated, “Health Systems are being constantly strengthened - a dequate stocks of health equipment are now available across the State - PPE (64,458), N95 masks (80,190), BiPAP Machines (60) and 3-ply masks (5,10,000).

Quarantine, Corona-Care and Isolation Centres have been set up across the State to deal with any surge situation. Doctors and other frontline medical staff including ambulance drivers and housekeeping staff are also being well taken care of. Surveillance and monitoring of all the registered 5200 individuals is being done by the Government.

The meeting also discussed the framework for home quarantine and testing post 28th April was discussed in detail.

The meeting decided to jointly urge the Citizens of the State to provide sensitive support to all COVID-19 positive individuals and those probable cases and not to stigmatize any individual as the virus can affect any person.


The meeting urged people not to be fearful of the virus and to follow the standard protocols relating to personal hygiene, hand washing, cough etiquette and social distancing.

“As per existing data, most people affected by the virus will not need hospitalization and will recover by being under home isolation. The Government is fully prepared to deal with all cases that may need hospitalization”.