Amid the surge in COVID cases, the Senior Divisional Commercial Manager (Sr. DCM) of Northern Railways’ Ambala Division on Thursday exudes hope that the lockdown situation may not arrive and that railway is ready to counter the situation. Sr. DCM, Hari Mohan Sharma in a conversation with ANI said, “The situation of lockdown may not come now. The Railways have already given Covid vaccine to all employees, railway passengers and senior citizens, which would help fight the situation better”. “In the last two waves, Railways closed all the trains so that the coronavirus did not spread much”, he said and added, “People like to travel by Train, due to its cost efficiency. This results in a huge crowd at the railway stations”. About Railway’s preparedness, he further stated, “There is information that a railway meeting is being held in Delhi, so some guidelines and alerts will come soon”.
Addressing the surge in COVID cases, he further said, “Now that the WHO has alerted all the countries, and the central government has alerted all the states, it is advisable to use Masks and Sanitizers to prevent the spread of the virus”. “Although the COVID rules for the recent surge have not been implemented, Railways are already on alert, and stricter rules will come to force, once the guidelines are recieved”, he said. Notably, COVID-19 is again creating havoc in many countries, and due to a situation of lockdown in many places, the central government has already alerted the states regarding the same. Railways have also been warned, although no official guideline has come for the railways. Notably, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday chaired a high-level virtual meeting to review the COVID-19 situation and its related aspects in the county. Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Union Health Miniter Mansukh Mandaviya and NITI Aayog Chief Executive Officer Parameswaran Iyer were among others who participated in the meeting.
Earlier in the day, Health Minister Mandaviya said that the government has started random RT-PCR sampling among the passengers arriving at International airports in the country amid the recent surge of Coronavirus infection in various countries including China, Japan, South Korea, France, and United States. He also encouraged the states to increase awareness towards precautionary doses. “We are keeping an eye on the global Covid situation and are taking steps accordingly. The States are advised to increase genome-sequencing to timely identify the new variant of Covid-19,” Mandaviya added. He further said that the health department has been proactive in managing the Covid pandemic. The Centre has also provided financial assistance to States in the fight against the pandemic, he added. Mandaviya has already directed the officials to be fully geared up and strengthen the surveillance system for whole genome sequencing of positive case samples to track the variants through the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) network to ensure the timely detection of newer variants, if any, circulating in the country. There has been an alarming surge in Covid cases in China, Japan, South Korea, France, and the United States. The spike is being blamed on the new Omicron sub-variant BF.7, which has also been detected in four Indian states.