UP better than four European countries badly hit by coronavirus: PM Modi
Lucknow : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said that Uttar Pradesh, which has a population size equal to four European counties badly hit by coronavirus, has mortality rate very less because of its singular efforts in fighting the deadly contagion.
"England, France, Italy and Spain - these countries at one time had conquered the world and were the biggest powers of the world, but if you add up the populations of all these countries it comes to 24 crore, but in India, UP alone has 24 crore. How effective UP has been can be seen from the fact that the four European nations together had 1,30,000 deaths due to COVID-19. But in UP, the number of deaths is 600. It shows that UP has been tacking the issue proactively and effectively," said the Prime Minister.
"But death is death, and every life matters and it is sad that any lives were lost, be it in India or elsewhere in the world."
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was addressing UP via a video conference to launch ''Atma Nirbhar Uttar Pradesh Rozgar Abhiyan''. During his address he showered praise on CM Yogi Adityanath for good handling of coronavirus.
"Yogiji understood the seriousness of the situation and instead of complaining and worrying, he and his team went on a war footing to ensure that 240 million people could be safe and control the spread of the disease as much as possible. When his father passed away recently, Yogiji put the people of Uttar Pradesh above his personal loss and continued to work to ensure that hospitals, beds, and other facilities like testing centres were opened," PM Modi said.
The PM interacted with villagers from six districts of Uttar Pradesh while launching the scheme to promote local entrepreneurship and job opportunities in partnership with industrial associations.
He advised that wearing a mask and "Do Gaz Doori" or physical distancing are the only medicines for coronavirus until there is a vaccine.
"Till such time that we don't get a vaccine for coronavirus, the only way to stop it from infecting us is to maintain good personal hygiene, wash our hands with soap regularly, cover our mouths with a mask when we go out of our homes and most importantly, maintain Do Gaz Doori (six-foot distance)," PM Modi said, holding up his stole as an example of a makeshift mask.
