Former Mizoram chief minister and state Congress president Lal Thanhawla on Monday urged the state government to launch a mass sample testing or detection drive in order to detect Covid-19 infected people and give them timely treatment. 

Lal Thanhawla in his statement said that Mizoram has been under lockdown for nearly 2 months since April 20 due to the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic. 

“Although lockdown is a good measure to curtail the rising Covid-19 transmission, cases continue to rise and in view of this an alternative or extra measure should be taken beyond lockdown in order to contain the rising Covid-19 cases,” he said. 

Citing that the second wave of Covid-19 is more dangerous and contagious than the first wave, he said that not only Covid-19 positivity rate keeps increasing, but the death rate is also on the rise in the second wave. 

He alleged that the failure to provide timely treatment has led the Covid-19 infected patients to critical stage, where they are to live on oxygen support. 

Citing that early detection of Covid-19 infected patients and provision of timely treatment are utmost important at this critical juncture, the Congress leader said a mass detection drive should be launched by the government in order to quickly detect infected people and provide with timely medical assistance. 

Earlier, the state government had implemented random test to ramp up its testing capacity. 

However, the random testing drive has been halted. 

Medical operational team on Covid-19 chairman Dr ZR Thiamsanga said that the government had to stop random testing drive due to facilities and manpower crunch. 

Starting from April 20, the state government imposed lockdown-like restrictions in Aizawl and district headquarters, which was followed by a complete lockdown from May. 

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Mizoram on Monday reported 113 Covid-19 cases and 2 deaths, pushing the state’s tally to 13,679 and death toll to 55. 

Mizoram now has 3,161 active cases, while 10,463 people have recovered from the infection. 

At least 118 people were discharged from various Covid-19 Care Centres on Monday after they were declared fully “recovered.” 

The recovery rate is 76.49 per cent and the death rate is 0.41 per cent. 

The state has tested 4,10,614 samples for Covid-19 till date. 

According to state immunisation officer Dr. Lalzawmi, as many as 2,70,606 people have been administered the first dose of Covid-19 vaccine till Monday. 

Of this, 52,376 beneficiaries have been fully vaccinated, she said.