By Express News Service
BHOPAL: With the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic intensifying, Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan took the streets of the capital on Monday evening, appealing to people to compulsorily wear face masks and follow other COVID appropriate behaviour.
Boarding the top of an open vehicle, Chouhan travelled around 50 km from Anand Nagar locality to Bairagarh on the city’s outskirts, appealing to people through the public address system to wear masks.
“I’ve started the campaign from my family by ensuring that my wife and two sons wear masks compulsorily when out in the crowd. Your mask is your safety against the killer pandemic, which is growing in dangerous proportions in the state. Mask Nahi Toh Baat Nahi, make it a thumb rule that we’ll not talk to others, unless they are wearing masks,” said Chouhan while addressing people throughout the 50-km route.
On the completion of the three-hour campaign, Chouhan announced to hold 24 hours Swasthagrah under the open sky near the Mahatma Gandhi statue outside the historic Minto Hall on Tuesday to appeal to people to adopt COVID appropriate behaviour.
All the meetings will be held at the venue of the Swasthagraha only throughout the 24 hours starting from 12.30 pm on Tuesday. Earlier, in the day, the CM appealed to all religious gurus, politicians, social activists and media houses to forget differences and unite to fight the pandemic.
He also dialled ex-CM and present Leader of Opposition Kamal Nath and apprised him about the pandemic’s situation in the state. He also sought suggestions from Nath to further streamline the fight against the pandemic.
Also, during the day the state government made some important decisions, including fixing rates for RT-PCR Test and Rapid Antigen Test at private labs and also instructing private hospitals not to charge hefty sums from the COVID-19 patients.
The RT-PCR rate at private labs has been fixed at Rs 700, while the fees for Rapid Antigen Test have been fixed at Rs 300. The labs will be eligible to charge additional Rs 200 on both tests, if the samples are collected from home.
Meanwhile, the central Indian state, is seventh in the country when it comes to number of positive cases, active cases and deaths.
Over the last 24 hours, the state reported 3398 fresh cases and 15 deaths, taking the active cases count 22,654. Since March 2020, the state has reported 310249 total cases and 4055 deaths, while a total 283540 people have so far recovered from the viral infection, including 2064 in the past 24 hours.
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