Dhanbad district administration has geared up on all fronts in the fight against Covid with a rise in active cases to 844 in the district beefing up the treatment facilities, vaccination as well as Covid Screening.

Talking to media during a press conference held at district collectorate through Google meet platform Sandeep Singh, Dhanbad Deputy Commissioner said, "We have arrangement of 500 normal beds besides 680 oxygen supported beds and also 90 beds with Bipap machine facility for treating chronic covid cases in different government hospitals. This apart in private hospitals there are 180 normal beds, 350 oxygen supported beds.

Home isolation facility is also being provided to people as per the Indian Council of Medical Research laid guidelines for the facility.

He further said that there is no dearth of oxygen in the district also as it has a capacity of 6500 liters per minute while a new oxygen plant of around 1000 liters per minute is likely to begin at Central Hospital of Dhanbad.

Cautioning common people against any laxity with regard to the observance of Covid appropriate behaviour he said that the Covid spread rate is quite more compared to last time and thus no compromise with guidelines issued by the state government will be accepted in any way.

“Our teams are regularly monitoring the situation across the district and mask checking drives are also being conducted and we are taking feedback from the teams on a daily basis and strict action will be taken against the rule violators” said Singh.

Giving details of the vaccination drive he said, "We are slightly behind the target of the state government with regard to vaccinating the first dose to all the residents by January 15 but we are accelerating the drive and likely to inoculate the first dose to all residents by January 25."

Giving details of the vaccination target he added, “Out of the target of administering the first dose of vaccine to 19.62 lakh persons, vaccines have been given to altogether 14.32 lakh persons which accounts to around 73% first dose vaccination simultaneously and around 4.5 lakh persons have been provided double dose of vaccines."

With regard to ongoing covid sampling he said that the health officials including the chief of Medical Superintendent of different hospitals, "Principals and Superintendents of medical college and hospital have been instructed to ensure cent percent covid screening of all patients coming to OPDs of different hospitals,” said Singh.