Health minister slams Cheema over Covid remark

CHANDIGARH: Punjab health minister Punjab Balbir Singh Sidhu on Sunday dismissed as ludicrous the statement of leader of opposition Harpal Singh Cheema, where the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader had expressed dissatisfaction on the state government’s handling of the covid-19 pandemic.

“The AAP MLA is oblivious to the fact that Punjab continues to fare much better than many other states in the fight against covid,” Sidhu said, adding that in Delhi, where the AAP was in power, the Centre had to take over the pandemic management. “What Delhi model is this, which even the high court is not satisfied with?,” he said.

The minister added that given that the entire testing strategy of the Delhi government was under the court’s scanner, Cheema’s insistence on Punjab adopting the same strategy was laughable.

He also claimed that in Delhi, numbers were effectively being fudged by keeping RT-PCR testing low and focusing largely on the uncertain Rapid Antigen Tests (with their large fake negatives). Punjab was going in for regular increase for the ₹gold standard’ RT-PCR test, added the health minister.