The Himachal Pradesh government has opened borders for all and now the restriction of COVID-19 e-Pass or registration has been removed, Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur informed the House during the ongoing monsoon session of the state assembly on Wednesday.

Thakur said the decision was taken in the Cabinet meeting held on Tuesday evening to boost economic activities in the state and as per the directions of the Union government in this regard in Unlock 4.

“The state government has taken effective steps to curb the spread of Coronavirus and Himachal is in much better position as compared to other states of the country.

If we compare the situation in the state, Himachal has only 10,513 cases so far while Maharashtra has recorded 10.97 lakh cases, Delhi 2.25 lakh cases, Rajasthan 1.05 cases, Punjab 84,482 cases and Uttarakhand has 34,407 cases.

The death rate in the state is 0.8 which is much lower than the national average of 1.64 and 2.98 in Punjab,” he added.

He said with increased death rate, it has been noticed that people when they notice symptoms like cough, cold and fever, try various home remedies and seek medical help which further aggravates the Corona infection.

This leads to people visiting the hospital when the infection has reached an advanced stage, resulting in an increase in fatalities in the state.

He advised the people of the state to adopt all safety measures and visit nearest health facilities if they notice any Influenza Like Illness. “The state government has also made some amendments in the treatment protocol of COVID-19 patients.

Earlier, the Corona patients after treatment for 10 days, used to be discharged after a negative test report but now, the asymptomatic patients would be discharged from hospital after 10 days without any test and they would be kept in home quarantine.

The new protocol has been issued to provide better facilities to those patients who are suffering other diseases (comorbidity),” he added.

He added that the government had also made amendments pertaining to opening of nursing colleges and now only those institutes will be allowed to open nursing colleges that had 100-bedded hospitals.