Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a virtual meeting with the Chief Ministers of various States and Union Territories on Thursday.
Here are the important highlights of Mr. Modi’s speech
- Dear CMs and colleagues of Government of India, today you have raised important points and given good suggestions
- The presentation by the health secretary has clearly shown that a challenging situation is coming up again and it needs governance improvements
- I know that the year long fight has led to some tiredness but we need to remember that the country has crossed the peak levels of the first wave and doubling rates are also higher
- Several states are showing grave trends of cases rising
- People and administration both seem to have become casual and this has increased our troubles
- We need to get back to combating Corona on a war footing
- Compared to earlier we have more experience, resources and a vaccines
- Health care workers are working hard and with sincerity
- I request all states to rely on the experience they garnered through the last year
- We didn’t have PPE kits, labs for testing , ventilators etc so we had to develop capacity through a lockdown
- Our concentration should be on a micro containment strategy
- I also request you to rename night curfew as “Corona curfew”
- It would be good to start this Corona curfew around 9pm and end early morning
- Please do concentrate on micro containment zone and we will gain from that
- Last time we had brought down 10 lakh active cases to 1.25 lakh cases, we can do so again as we now have kire experience
- Test, track , treat and COVID appropriate behaviour and management is the way to go forward
- I ask a question - nowadays many patients are asymptomatic and are casual and spread it around, families are getting affected. Proactive testing is the way to deal with this.
- More than discussing about vaccines we must stress on testing
- We have an important way of containment of the virus, that is to contain the human source
- Earlier states had been praised and criticised looking at case rates, i said it then and I say it now not to bother about it, keep testing rates high. Let those who criticise do so
- Our target is to have 70% as RTPCR tests
- I have heard that some samples are being taken in a lethargic, superficial way, that should be stopped
- In our last meeting too we had agreed that high number of RTPCR tests should be done and properly
- Containment zones should have testing for all living in it
- Mortality rates are also a cause of concern, we must make sure this must be as low as possible
- We must have an analysis of cases where death has occurred, at what stage was patient tested, what comorbidities he/she had
- On Vaccination- across the world, even rich countries have set criteria for vaccination and India has not done anything differently
- New vaccines are being considered, manufacturing is also being looked at. Their stock etc is also being reviewed periodically
- Our purpose should be to vaccinate as many people as possible in the eligible category
- I appeal to the youth to follow COVID SOPs
- The digital outreach for vaccines should be smoothened by youth among people who have issues dealing with digital registration
- Even after vaccine COVID SOPs should be followed
- The carelessness that has crept in on following mask wearing and social distancing has to be combated
- Can states have all party meetings called by the governor to design this campaign?
- Summits, webinars etc should be held by state governors to reinforce Covid appropriate behaviour
- Focus on testing, vaccination is going to go on for some time