Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday assured the Centre of all support in its fight against the deadly COVID-19 infection while urging people not to lower guard against the virus.
Participating in the discussion Prime Minister Narendra Modi held with Chief Ministers of all States through videoconferencing he said, “We will continue to extent all support to the Union Government in this fight against Covid.”
He said “As a country with huge population, achieving herd immunity will be a long process and in the meantime we all need to be extremely careful,” he said.
Mr.Patnaik said no one can afford to 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,” Mr.Patnaik said.
He said over the last one year, the world has seen unprecedented crisis due to the Covid-19 situation and it was a difficult year for every human being as the virus spread to all parts of the world.
“Families and societies have been affected not only in terms of health crisis but also severe impact on the economy and livelihoods as well,” Mr.Patnaik added.
He said in Odisha people are also affected by disasters like cyclones almost every year and its administrative machinery is well prepared to deal with crisis situations.
“Thankfully with the cooperation of people of Odisha we have been able to control the pandemic and limit its damage to a large extent,” he said and added, “Our health staff and administrative system have been working continuously throughout this crisis period.”
Mr.Patnaik said the roll out of the vaccine has been helpful in providing hope to our citizens that the end of the pandemic is nearing.
“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,” the Chief Minister said.
The long period of this crisis has brought fatigue and complacency in following COVID-19 health protocols and people need to be careful as multiple surges of COVID-19 spread is the reality in many countries and as witnessed in many states in India as well.