With nine deaths and 23770 active cases, the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic continues to keep the Jharkhand government on its toes as confirmed cases of Omicron variant too have been found.
Three patients died on Friday at RIMS from the Covid identified as Pramod Pathak (Gaya), Chandramohan (Khunti), and Rita Devi from Palamu. Earlier deaths were reported in East Singhbhum, Deoghar, Dhanbad, Khunti and Ranchi district.
Dr. Pradeep Bhattacharya said that the condition of the deceased was critical and they were suffering from various diseases. Currently, there are 75 Covid patients are admitted at RIMS. 17 of them are admitted to the intensive care unit. There are concerns about the manpower as staff and doctors at RIMS are getting affected by the pandemic. On Friday a total of 2167 samples were tested at RIMS out of which the report of 117 turned positive. Among them, 44 are RIMS health staff and doctors.
While Ranchi continues to top the list of the district with the maximum number of cases with a total of 487, it is followed by West Singhbhum with 466 cases. Jamshedpur has reported 20 cases of the Omicron variant. On January 3, the local administration had sent 180 samples to Bhuvneshwar for genome sequencing out of which 20 were tested positive for this new variant.
On Friday 2015 new cases were reported from Jharkhand. However, 3814 patients also recovered. Meanwhile, the government has intensified vaccination drive among. So far 2.42 crore people of 18 plus age group have been given the first dose of vaccine whereas 1.25 crore got both doses of vaccine. Youth aged between 15 and 17 too are getting vaccine. So far 809139 of them got their first dose against the target of 2398000.
Maoists blow up 2 mobile towers in Giridih
Pankaj Kumar • Dhanbad
CPI -Maoist once again let their presence felt, when the cadres blew up two mobile towers in Pirtand block of Giridih district on Friday night to protest the arrest of their top commander Prashant Bose and his wife Sheela Marandi.
Heavy quantity of explosives was used for this by the Maoists. Besides, they also put up several posters in the area to spread message of protest.The mobile tower of Airtel company located at Khukhra as well as of Idea location aged at Madhuban were blown up in protest.
Posters were spread at both locations demanding status of 'political prisoners" for both of them besides better health facilities for Prashant.
Both the incidents were planned in such a manner to mark the beginning of the week long "pritirodh diwash " (revenge day) that started from midnight of January 21 and would conclude on January 26 followed by Bihar- Jharkhand bandh call on January 27.
Both cell phone companies have incurred heavy losses and the mobile network in the area has been disrupted due to the two incidents.
