Srinagar, May 2 (IANS): The Jammu and Kashmir government on Sunday constituted a crisis management group to deal with the Covid situation in the union territory.

An official statement said, "The government of J&K has constituted a crisis management group (CMG) to monitor the rapidly evolving COVID-19 situation and to take preventive, control and mitigating measures.

"The 5-member CMG will consist of the Chief Secretary as Chairman, and Financial Commissioner (Finance), Financial Commissioner (Health), Principal Secretary (Home) and Principal Secretary (PWD) as members.

"The Principal Secretary to the Lt. Governor will be a special invitee. The group will interact with other officers and medical specialists as necessary.

"The CMG will meet daily and more often if necessary, to review the rapidly evolving COVID-19 in terms of cases, testing rates, positivity, mortality, recovery, hospital occupancy and other parameters.

"To review the oxygen and medicine requirement and availability at all health institutions.

"To take immediate measures for preventing the spread, control the infection and manage the availability of resources.

"To monitor the vaccine rollout and fine tune vaccination strategies to ensure speedy and complete coverage at the earliest.

"To take other steps with the overall goal of controlling the spread of the disease," said the statement.