NEW DELHI : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday convened a high-level meeting to review the covid-19 related issues and ongoing vaccination drive in the country, people with knowledge of the matter in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said.
All senior officers including cabinet secretary Rajeev Gauba, principal secretary to the PM Pramod Kumar Mishra, Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan and NITI Aayog member-health Dr Vinod Paul are participating in the meeting, people mentioned above said.
Premium The concern over the evolving pandemic in India becomes obvious with the country registering 93,249 new daily cases in the last 24 hours. Nearly 80.96% of these new cases are from eight states—Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat.
Maharashtra has reported the highest number of daily new cases at 49,447. This is followed by Chhattisgarh with 5,818 cases while Karnataka reported 4,373 new cases, the Union health ministry data showed.
India is seeing a steep intensification in the doubling time of the covid-19 cases: As of 4 April 2021, it is 115.4 days.
India’s total active caseload has reached 691,597. It now comprises 5.54% of the country's total positive cases. A net incline of 32,688 cases was recorded from the total active caseload in the last 24 hours.
Five states, namely Maharashtra, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Kerala and Punjab cumulatively account for 76.41% of the total active cases in the country. Maharashtra alone accounts for more than half (58.19%) of the total active caseload of the country, the Union health ministry said.
In order to control the pandemic, India has already started vaccinating its population against the highly infectious disease. The countrywide vaccination drive was rolled out on 16 Jan 2021 with the inoculation of healthcare workers (HCWs) and vaccination of the frontline workers (FLWs) started from 2 Feb 2021.The second phase of covid-19 vaccination commenced from 1 March 2021 for those who are over 60 years of age and for people aged 45 and above with specified co-morbid conditions following which the third phase was rolled out from 1 April 2021 covering all persons above 45 years of age irrespective of comorbidities.
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Premium Premium Meanwhile, India’s vaccination drive on Sunday crossed the landmark of 75 million doses administered across the country. More than 65 million have got the first vaccine dose whereas more than 10 million have received the second dose.
On 17 March in another review meeting, noticing sudden swelling of covid-19 cases across the country after a brief decline, Modi had told states to stop the emerging "second peak" of coronavirus immediately.
The Prime Minister had interacted with the chief ministers of various states to discuss the containment strategy of covid-19 pandemic via video conference. The Prime Minister had expressed concern about the high positivity rate in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh and rising cases in Punjab and Maharashtra.
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