Punjab on Thursday reported one more COVID-19 related death, taking the total tally to 14 so far in the State, according to an official statement.
The State health department said the patient who died was from Gurdaspur and was under treatment at a hospital in Amritsar. The State also reported 11 fresh cases of COVID-19, taking the total number of positive cases to 197 in the State. Twenty-nine COVID-19 patients have so far recovered in Punjab, it added.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu said that four districts in the State have been declared as hotspots by the Centre based on number of cases. These districts are SAS Nagar, SBS Nagar, Jalandhar and Pathankot. These are districts where more than 15 cases of COVID-19 have been reported so far.
“Now, Punjab is in second stage and to deal with unprecedented circumstances, the front-line teams of the health department is constantly working on a war footing to trace all the contacts of the affected patient, which is the single way to curb the spread of this highly contagious disease,” he said.
Mr. Sidhu added, “We have one of the foremost examples of SBS Nagar where the State government has successfully broken the chain of coronavirus and the number of patients freezed at 19 since March 26. Of the 19 patients, 17 patients have recovered.”
Separately, an official government statement said that with the State staring at revenue losses to the tune of ₹22,000 crore for the financial year 2020-21, in view of the COVID-19 crisis, all Punjab Ministers have decided not to take their salaries for the next three months.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the Finance Sub-Committee, constituted recently under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to take stock of the fiscal implications of the pandemic and the lockdown-curfew triggered by it, and find ways of generating review to compensate for the losses and meet the costs resulting from the current crisis, said the statement.
Finance Minister Manpreet Badal infrmed the meeting that of the ₹88,000 crore revenue receipts estimated to be raised by the State for the financial year 2020-21, only ₹66,000 crore would now be generated in the light of the curfew-lockdown, which had brought all business and tax receipts to a standstill. .
