Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has called for a Cabinet meeting on March 14 at 6 p.m. to consider the recommendations of senior officials and the Health Minister on preventive measures required to check the spread of coronavirus .
Mr. Rao informed this in the Legislative Assembly during a short discussion on coronavirus here on Saturday. Assuring the House that the situation in Telangana was not alarming and that the government was ready to face any serious situation, he said one positive case of coronavirus with travel history from Italy was being treated in Gandhi Hospital. Test reports of two persons sent to Pune were being awaited. The two persons too have travel history.
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One person who tested positive for coronavirus and underwent treatment in Gandhi Hospital for two weeks was discharged on Friday night, he said.
In the wake of measures taken by the Centre cancelling visas of foreign nationals coming from seven countries — China, Iran, Italy, South Korea, Japan, Germany and Spain — he said Indians coming from those countries would have to be quarantined for 14 days as per guidelines.
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Though Hyderabad has no direct flights from the above countries, people still could come to Hyderabad via other cities. Thus, 200 staff of the Health Department were stationed in Hyderabad International Airport to screen Indians with travel history from the specified countries. The situation was being monitored by a coordination committee of IAS and IPS officers, he said.
He said that a high-level meeting of Health and other department officials and Health Minister was on to decide steps to be taken keeping in view of the decision of the Delhi government of closing down schools and malls. In Bangalore too, shut down of malls was announced and directive was given to organise family functions in a low-key manner. In Pune and Bhubaneswar too, similar measures were announced, he said.
The meeting would go on till 5.30 p.m and a decision on precautionary measures and preparedness of the State would be taken in the Cabinet meeting. The high-level officials committee would be present in the Cabinet meeting today.
Reiterating that people need not panic, he said preventive measures would be taken for the safety of citizens. The government had allocated ₹1,000 crore for taking all measures and procuring masks and special masks for medical staff in the event of coronavirus cases spreading. If required, the government would spend ₹5,000 crore to make all arrangements to tackle the spread of virus, he said.
