
India is currently facing the brunt of the rising Covid-19 cases and the authorities are in arms to curb the spread of the deadly virus. However, Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Tuesday, pointed out that the next three weeks are crucial with respect to the Covid-19 pandemic situation in the country.
“Centre working closely with States and UTs on public health measures to contain Covid-19. Next three weeks crucial! At a meeting held today, UTs advised augmenting hospital infrastructure, ramping up testing, creating containment zones and strictly enforcing Covid appropriate behaviour,” Vardhan said, as quoted by the news agency ANI.
Centre working closely with States & UTs on public health measures to contain #COVID19
Next 3 weeks crucial!At a meeting held today, UTs advised to;
◽️Augment hospital Infra
◽️Ramp up testing
◽️Create containment zones
◽️Strictly enforce COVID Appropriate Behaviour@PMOIndia— Dr Harsh Vardhan (@drharshvardhan) April 20, 2021
Earlier in the day, Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan along with Union home secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla chaired a high-level meeting to review and discuss the Covid-19 status, management and response strategy, reported news agency ANI.
The meeting was held via video conferencing and attended by Dr V K Paul, member (health) of NITI Aayog, Dr Balram Bhargava, secretary of DHR and DG ICMR, the chief secretaries and DGPs of all the union territories of India.
During the meeting on Tuesday, the home secretary emphasized the steep growth in coronavirus infections across the country. According to the ANI report, he has also advised the UTs to increase RT-PCR testing along with the use of RAT (Rapid Antigen Test) for screening in clusters.
Several states in India have witnessed strict regulations being imposed by their respective authorities. Now, the recent report also suggests that the UTs have shared the efforts they are undertaking for containment and management of the cases.
In an attempt to escape the restrictions being levied across the states, many people have reportedly travelled to tourists destinations. Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir and Lakshadweep have reportedly stated that the rise in cases was due to a large number of inbound travellers.
Meanwhile, the Chandigarh administration has informed about door-to-door counselling for increasing vaccination. It said that 905 of the patients in the UT are in home isolation and being monitored by mobile teams, reported news agency ANI.
The surging Covid-19 cases have lead to the increased demand for medical supplies. Over the weekend, Chief Ministers of Delhi, Maharashtra, West Bengal, amongst others highlighted the shortage of health care in their respective states and urged the centre to provide the essential medical supplies.
In the meeting held on Tuesday, the Delhi administration discussed the shortage of beds and the efforts to augment this through the central government’s infrastructure and support from DRDO’s newly operationalised Covid Hospital.
Dr V K Paul pointed out the criticality of the next three weeks for Covid response measures. The UT administrators were advised to plan in advance for three weeks.
Meanwhile, India has reported 2.59 lakh new coronavirus cases and 1,761 deaths in the last 24 hours, stated that the latest data released by the Union Health Ministry on Tuesday.
The total number of cases has spiked to 1.53 crore while the death toll went up to 1.80 lakh while the active number of cases in the country stands at 20.31 lakh.
In the last 24 hours, 1.54 lakh recovered from the infection. With this, the total recoveries reached 1.31 crore. Daily covid cases in India had jumped a record 2.73 lakh on Monday.