Today, Nitish Kumar led Bihar Government has declared COVID-19 aka Coronavirus an Epidemic in the state. Today, Bihar Government also releases Bihar Epidemic Diseases COVID-19 Regulation 2020. Today, Bihar Health Department releases a notification saying they had made changes in the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 in the state and issuing COVID-19 Regulation 2020.
This new act now gives Bihar Government the authority to conduct forcible isolation and mass screening of suspected Coronavirus patient in the state.
The new act also gives the Government the legal power to take punitive action against those who won’t cooperate with the Government to screen for the virus symptoms.
Till now, a total of 311 suspected cases reported in Bihar but non of them found positive with Coronavirus. India total has 52 coronavirus centres, out of which Bihar has one in Rajendra Memorial Research Insititute of Medical Sciences, Patna.
Bihar Health Department Principal Secretary, Sanjay Kumar said We brought this new regulation to give respective officials extraordinary power to take immediate action against this virus from spreading in the state. We sent all the necessary documents about this new regulation to all the District Magistrates in Bihar and had asked them to take appropriate action against those who won’t cooperate.
This new COVID-19 regulation gives District Magistrates the power to seal a particular area in a case report of COVID-19 defined in a specific geographic region. The new act also gives DM the ability to close schools, offices, public gathering, vehicular movement if COVID-19 starts spreading in an area.
The new act also allows the District Magistrate to conduct coercive action against people who are suspected patients of the Coronavirus and are refusing treatment. This new act also provides for action against those spreading rumours related to the Coronavirus.
