High level Group of Ministers reviews status, actions for prevention, management of Covid-19

The eighth high-level meeting of the Group of Ministers (GoM) on COVID-19 was held at Nirman Bhawan today and was chaired by Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan.

The group had detailed deliberation on the prevention and management of Covid-19 in the country. In continuation of ongoing steps taken in this direction, the Committee of Secretaries chaired by Cabinet Secretary, at its meeting today, analysed the current situation and gave its recommendation to the Group of Ministers (GoM).

The Group of Ministers reviewed the status of cases in India and the steps taken by the Government of India, so far. In addition to the travel restrictions and advisories already in place, GoM has decided that no scheduled international commercial passenger aircraft shall take off from any foreign airport for any airport in India, after 0001 hrs GMT of March 22, 2020 (0531 hrs Indian Standard Time (IST) of March 22, 2020). These instructions shall remain in force till 0001 hrs GMT of March 29, 2020.

"A maximum travel time of 20 hours is permissible for such commercial passenger aircraft to land in India," the GoM further said

Further, the government of India had issued a detailed advisory on social distancing measures as a non-pharmaceutical intervention on March 16, 2020.

The GoM said that the states shall issue instructions for regulating hours in all services except for essential services. Industrial establishments to consider staggered timings and regulation of crowd in the market should also be resorted to. States shall issue directions to the private sector to consider work from home wherever feasible, it added.