Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a virtual meeting with all chief ministers today. This meeting is crucial as it will be held amid rising COVID-19 cases across the country. The virtual interaction will reportedly take place at 12.30 pm today.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called a meeting of all chief ministers to discuss the sudden rise in coronavirus cases in several states. PM Modi's last interaction with chief ministers was in January before the vaccination roll-out.
PM had announced that the Centre will bear the expenses of vaccinating nearly three crore healthcare and frontline workers in the first round. The drive has now moved on to the next round to cover people over 60 years of age, and those aged above 45 years and have comorbidities.
Meanwhile, Union health minister Harsh Vardhan on Monday said negligence towards COVID-19 appropriate behaviour is the main reason behind the surge in the cases.
"Only a few states account for more than 80% of the rising cases. The negligence towards COVID appropriate behaviour is the main reason behind it. It is important to ascertain that COVID appropriate behaviour is followed even after the vaccine is available," union health minister Harsh Vardhan said.
India recorded 26,291 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, its highest single-day spike in 85 days, taking the country's infection tally to 1,13,85,339.
The death toll due to the disease increased to 1,58,725 with 118 more fatalities being recorded in a day.
Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu continued to report a spike in daily new cases.
These five states cumulatively account for 78.41% of the new cases reported in the past 24 hours.
Maharashtra has reported the highest daily new cases at 15,0 51 (accounting for 63.21% of the daily new cases).
It is followed by Kerala with 1,792 while Punjab reported 1,492 new cases.