New strain of Covid has no symptoms: Himachal CM

Shimla: Amidst elections in four Municipal Corporations, Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur has expressed quite strong fears about new Coronavirus strain entering Himachal Pradesh.

The Chief Minister, who reached Dharamshala on Tuesday in the second leg of his poll campaign went to Dr Rajendra Prasad Medical College, Tanda (Kangra) and held a meeting with senior district and medical teams.

Kangra is one of six districts, bordering Punjab, seeing a biggest rise in the Covid cases during the past 20 days.

The Chief Minister urged the medical teams to make people aware to stay cautious against Covid-19 as this time the virus had come back with more strength, energy and was more fatal. The health experts had observed that after the advent of new variants of Corona, there were no traces of cough or fever and the patients were just complaining of joint pains, weakness and loss of appetite and Covid-19 pneumonia, he said.

Chief Minister said, "It was taking less time to get to extreme in comparison to the past and sometimes, there were no symptoms even. Therefore it is better to be careful than remaining unguarded and putting ourselves, family and the society in danger."

Local Panchayati Raj representatives should be involved in monitoring such persons and encourage the people to take precautionary measures in fight against this deadly virus. No person should be allowed to walk without wearing a mask in public places.

Shopkeepers should not allow the people to enter their outlets without masks and proper hygiene habits should be practiced to keep this virus at bay. Without maintaining social distancing it was difficult to beat Corona.

All the safety mantras given by the health authorities should be practiced in spirit to play safe as this would help us in keeping the economic activities alive and not upsetting development, progress and economy of the country.

Thakur also directed the health authorities to enhance testing of Coronavirus in order to stop the community spread.

He said that it had been seen that the new strain was not domiciled in our nasopharyngeal region and had been directly affecting the lungs, which means window periods were shortened.

He urged the people to be careful and avoid crowded places as far as possible and wear face masks all the time while being at public places and transport.