The surge in covid-19 cases and deaths in Maharashtra and Punjab remain cause of “extreme" concern for the government as India strives to tackle the second wave of coronavirus pandemic.
Maharashtra, Punjab and Chhattisgarh continue to record high case load and deaths. “From 3000 average daily cases in February to 44,000 cases per day now and 32 average daily deaths to 250 deaths per day now, Maharashtra continues to be a cause of concern for its share of the total number of cases and deaths nationally," said Rajesh Bhushan, Union Health and Family Welfare Secretary at a media briefing on the actions taken, preparedness and updates on covid-19 on Tuesday.
Premium The health secretary said that Maharashtra accounts for 58% of all active cases and 34% of all covid-19 related deaths in the country. Seven out of top 10 districts with active covid-19 cases are from Maharashtra, while one each are from Karnataka, Chhattisgarh and Delhi. Districts with maximum cases are Pune, Mumbai, Thane, Nagpur, Nashik, Bengaluru, Urban, Aurangabad, Ahmednagar, Delhi and Durg.
According to the union health ministry, Maharashtra’s weekly covid-19 positivity rate which had declined to 6% during the beginning of February has now increased to 24% in the last week.
“This is a matter of concern. We need to work more strictly in matters of isolating people where it's needed," said Bhushan. The health secretary expressed concern over the decline in RT-PCR tests in Maharashtra. “The share of RT-PCR tests has decreased in the last few weeks; it has gone down from around 71% in March 1st week to only about 60% of total testing in the last week. We advise states to keep the share of RT-PCR to 70% or above," said Bhushan.
Over 96,982 new cases were registered in the last 24 hours. Eight States including Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat have shown a steep rise in the covid-19 daily new cases. 80.04% of the new cases are reported from these 8 states.
The government has deployed 50 high-level multi-disciplinary public health teams in 30 Maharashtra districts, 11 Chhattisgarh districts and 9 Punjab districts. They (having a public health specialist and a clinician) will help in surveillance, control and containment measures. “We have advised Maharashtra to use mobile testing labs in the geographically difficult terrains. Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is assisting the Maharashtra Government in this work," said the health secretary.
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 16th Jan 2021 with vaccination of healthcare workers (HCWs) and vaccination of the frontline workers (FLWs) started from 2nd Feb 2021.The second phase of covid-19 vaccination commenced from 1st 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 April 1st 2021 covering all persons above 45 years of age irrespective of comorbidities.
Premium Premium Meanwhile, the Central Government on Tuesday asked all its employees aged 45 years and above to get themselves vaccinated to effectively contain the spread of covid-19. As per order issued by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions on Tuesday, they are also advised to continue to follow COVID-appropriate behaviour even after vaccination by frequent washing of hands and sanitisation, wearing a mask or face cover and observing social distancing etc.
“More than eight crore vaccine doses have been administered in the country in less than 80 days, which has been made possible by a close coordination between the Centre and State Governments," Bhushan said. In Maharashtra, more than 81 lakh people have been administered the first dose of vaccine and more than eight lakh have received their second dose. Gujarat, Rajasthan, UP, West Bengal, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala have performed well in the vaccination drive.
According to the union health ministry, 8.31 crore vaccine doses have been administered till Tuesday morning with 5.35 crore people aged 45 or above vaccinated, 89.6 lakh health care workers and 97.28 lakh frontline workers have been vaccinated.
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