State govt to come up with new SOP:CS

With three persons testing positive for COVID-19, the State government is working on a new standard operating procedure (SOP) and is expected to be released soon.

Speaking to Nagaland Post and NE8, chief secretary Temjen Toy said SOP was already in place, however with the rush of people arriving by special trains and buses, there was a need to relook and review the SOP and the government was working on it. He assured that the new SOP would be brought out very soon.

On the decision of testing all returnees as the State had only one BSL-3 lab, which can only perform a limited number of tests (70) on a single day, Toy said though currently there was only one lab, which was made functional few days back, the State government would continue to send samples to labs in Assam and Manipur. 

And as the State had a single BSL lab now, he said the government had decided to go for pool testing, which would increase the scope of tests and would therefore be more effective in tracking the virus. For central and southern districts, Toy said the samples would be tested at Kohima while for districts like Mon it would be more convenient to test in Dibrugarh.

And since COVID-19 was here to stay and had no season, he called upon Nagas to learn to live with it by taking all precautionary measures.