Centre to review Covid situation in 10 states as Kerala, northeast remain areas of concern

Centre will review the situation in Kerala, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Assam, Mizoram, Meghalaya and Manipur.

Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan will on Saturday review the situation in 10 states, including Kerala, where cases of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) are on the rise even as the rest of the country has reported fewer infections, officials said. Bhushan will review the situation in Kerala, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Assam, Mizoram, Meghalaya and Manipur.

The Centre has already rushed a six-member multi-disciplinary team to Kerala. (ANI Photo)

The Centre has already rushed a six-member multi-disciplinary team to Kerala which will monitor the Covid-19 pandemic situation there and suggest measures to control the spread of infection in the southern state. The team of experts headed by Dr Sujeet Singh, the director of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), reached Thiruvananthapuram on Friday night.

"There are many concerns, rise in positivity rate is one. Cases are declining everywhere and transmission is continuing in Kerala," Singh, Director, who is a part of the team, said earlier, according to news agency PTI. "Let us discuss this with the state. It is a comprehensive situation, let us see how things unfold," he said.

Kerala reported more than 20,000 fresh infections on Friday, which is 50 per cent of India's total single-day Covid-19 tally, for the fourth consecutive day. The state's test positivity rate has risen to 13.61 per cent.

According to the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Chennai, Kerala and northeastern states are among the regions where R-value, which indicates the rate at which Covid-19 infection is spreading in the nation, is on the rise. Kerala continues to have an R-value around 1.11.

Sitabhra Sinha of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences said controlling an outbreak is much easier when the R-value is near one and the number of active cases of Covid-19 remains in the range of a few hundred. "India's overall active cases are fluctuating too much to get a reliable estimate, but data is pointing at a value close to one. It may tip over either way in the coming few days," Sinha told PTI.

In Maharashtra, there were 6,600 new Covid-19 cases and 231 deaths on Friday pushing the caseload in the state to 62,96,756 and the death toll to 132,566.

Union minister of state for health and family welfare Dr Bharati Pravin Pawar said earlier this month that the Centre has sent teams to the states and Union territories (UTs) that are reporting a surge in Covid-19 cases. Pawar also said that the Centre will take more steps to check the spread of Covid-19 in these regions.