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Centre advises 11 states of ‘grave concern’ on Covid-19 control measures
On Thursday, there were 81,413 new infections reported across India, the highest single-day increase since October 1, 2020.
The Centre on Friday expressed concern at the massive surge of coronavirus infections in many parts of the country over the last month and reiterated the steps that states should take to curb the spread of infections in the ongoing second wave of Covid-19. It lamented that the 11 states that reported 90% of India’s cases over the past 14 days, adding that these ‘states of grave concern’ haven’t “shown a commensurate increase in enforcement of containment activities.”
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These states have crossed or are close to crossing their previous peaks of new cases over the last year, an official statement by the Union health ministry said, describing the situation in Maharashtra as “particularly worrying”.The central government’s sharp message, delivered at a review meeting chaired by Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba and attended by senior central and state government officials, came hours before Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray’s special address to people in the state on the Covid-19 situation.
On Thursday, there were 81,413 new infections reported across India, the highest single-day increase since October 1, 2020. The second wave has pushed cases to levels not witnessed in the country in at least six months. India’s highest single-day caseload was 99,181 on September 10, according to the HT dashboard.
During the meeting, cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba pointed out that the current Covid-19 case growth rate of 6.8% in March 2021 has surpassed the previous record of 5.5% in June last year. “The country also reported 5.5% growth rate in daily COVID deaths in this period. While the country was reporting about 97,000 daily new COVID cases at the peak of the pandemic in September 2020, the country has now reached the critical figure 81,000 daily new cases of COVID,” according to the health ministry statement.
According to experts and government officials, a massive and widespread inoculation drive is the only chance the country has to turn the tide against the building second wave of infections.
For the 11 states reporting upsurge, the government listed five tools including vaccination, enhanced testing, strict containment, prompt contact tracing and enforcement of Covid appropriate behaviour, to curb the spread of the viral disease. Eleven states and UTs that were categorised as “states of grave concern” are Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Chandigarh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, and Haryana.
The government also told the states to increase testing continuously to ensure that positivity comes down to 5% or less than 5%. It advised them to focus on ensuring RT-PCR tests comprise 70% of total test, reduce waiting time of test results with regular review with testing labs, use Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT) as screening test in densely populated areas and where fresh clusters are emerging, and ensure that all symptomatic RAT negatives are mandatorily subjected to RT-PCR tests.
