Bhubaneswar: The state government will continue to extend all support to the Union government in the fight against Covid-19 pandemic, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said, Wednesday.
Patnaik said this during the interaction of the Prime Minister with all the chief ministers on Covid-19 situation through videoconferencing.
“As a country with a huge population, achieving herd immunity will be a long process and in the meantime, we all need to be extremely careful. We will continue to extend all support to the Union government in this fight against Covid,” he said.
Over the last one year, the world has seen an unprecedented crisis due to the Covid-19 situation. 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 a severe impact on the economy and livelihoods as well, Naveen said.
Stating that Odisha is affected by disasters like cyclones almost every year, the Chief Minister said, “Our 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 thanked the scientific community for developing vaccines at such short notice and said, “The rollout of the vaccine has been helpful in providing hope to the citizens that the end of the pandemic is nearing. 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 program.”
“We need to be careful as multiple surges of Covid spread is the reality in many countries and as witnessed in many states in India as well. We cannot go back to the era of lockdowns,” the CM stated.
However, he added, at the same time people need to ensure that the virus spread is also contained through renewed efforts in awareness and enforcement.
