Jharkhand health minister Banna Gupta claimed on Friday that the state was fully prepared to tackle Covid cases and a high-level meeting chaired by the chief minister would be held on December 26 to review strategies in view of the surge in Covid cases globally.

Banna Gupta, who was speaking to the Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya in a video conference between the health ministry and health ministers of different states on Friday evening, said, “We are ready to tackle a surge in Covid cases, though there has not been any addition to Covid cases as on December 22. A high-level meeting will also be chaired by our chief minister Hemant Soren on December 26 to review the strategy for tackling Covid in line with the directive of the Union health ministry.

Additional chief secretary (health) of Jharkhand Arun Kumar Singh, who was also present during the video conference with the Union health minister, had on Thursday directed all the 24 district deputy commissioners to send samples of Covid positive cases for whole genome sequencing at the genome sequencing lab.

Jharkhand health minister also sought permission from the Union home ministry for use of Rs 106 crore from the disaster management fund and sought the release of Rs 110 crore pending on head of Covid preparation from the Union health ministry which would help the state in gearing up infrastructure at health centres for Covid cases.

The minister also sought from the health ministry symptoms of the new variants of Omicron (B47) and its line of treatment.

“We have also directed airport authorities at both the airports in Ranchi and Deoghar to start thermal scanning for overseas travellers and checking vaccine certificates.

Directive has been sent to all the deputy commissioners of districts to start thermal scanning at railway stations and prepare to start checking points on roads connecting districts with other states,” said Gupta.