Centre gives three reasons for India's Covid surge

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday chaired a high-level meeting on the ongoing Covid surge in India and said that community awareness and its involvement is key to tackling the pandemic.

During the meeting, the government revealed three broad reasons behind the alarming surge in cases.

It attributed the spike to the severe decline in compliance of Covid-appropriate behaviour, pandemic fatigue and lack of effective implementation of containment measures at the field level.



The government said that people are not following Covid norms properly, such as wearing of masks and maintaining social distancing, which could be a key reason behind the rise in cases.

Among other things, the Prime Minister highlighted the need to enforce Covid-appropriate behaviour in the coming days during the meeting.

The government has also announced a special campaign for Covid-appropriate behaviour with emphasis on 100% mask usage, personal hygiene and sanitation at public places/workplaces and health facilities from April 6 to April 14.

PM Modi chairs a high-level meet on Covid situation in India and vaccination progress (PTI)

The government said it is hard to link the current surge to mutant strains detected in the country, saying that the relation between the two remains "speculative".

"Although the exact contribution of mutant strains to the escalation of cases in some states remains speculative, the measures to control the pandemic remain the same and hence implementation of various protocols for Covid-19 management are all the more critical in those areas," it said.

The meeting comes in the backdrop of India witnessing a spike in fresh infections, with the country overtaking US and Brazil to report the single day spike of over 93,000 on Sunday.

Several states have started imposing restrictions on the movement of people to arrest the continuous rise in cases.

Maharashtra — the worst-affected state in the country which is heavily leading the ongoing surge — announced stricter curbs today such as weekend lockdown and night curfew.