PM Modi holds final Covid meeting on December 24 (File)
New Delhi:
Government sources revealed to NDTV, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a meeting with top officials at 16:30 to review the Covid situation in the country.
The meeting took place against the backdrop of a frightening increase in new cases daily; this morning, nearly 1.6 lakhs were reported in the previous 24 hours – a huge spike from 27,553 seven days ago.
Prime Minister Modi held a Covid meeting for the last time on December 24, at which he urged officials to stay’satark‘(warning) and’saavdhaan‘(vigilant’) as India tries to contain a third wave of infections.
“In view of the new variant, we should ‘satark‘ and ‘saavdhan‘. The fight against the pandemic is not over yet and the need to continue to adhere to COVID safe behaviors is paramount even today,” said the Prime Minister.
Since then, active cases in India have grown from less than 80,000 to almost six thousand, with a worrying number of doctors and healthcare workers – the first line of defense against the virus – tested positive, including hundreds of people in major cities like Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru.
The surge in Covid cases also comes as five states – including Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous and where health infrastructure is patchy – prepare to hold elections 30 days from today.
UP, Punjab, Goa, Manipur and Uttarakhand will hold the polls in seven phases starting February 10, the Election Commission announced yesterday. The leading polling body has been urged by Allahabad High Court to postpone the elections due to the Covid emergency.
However, after meetings between the Commission, the Union Health Ministry and medical experts, Election Commission Chief Sushil Chandra said the polls would be held as scheduled.
Mr Chandra said elections were needed to “maintain democratic governance”.
However, in view of Covid, the Electoral Commission banned all rallies, street runs and meetings until January 15 and ordered a curfew from 8pm to 8am for political activities.
Voting time has been extended by an hour and only 1,250 people will be allowed to participate for both, with states required to ensure that all voters and poll workers, at least, are vaccinated. room twice.
The government has warned that the Omicron variant is three times more infectious than the Delta that swept the country in a second wave.
India has reported 3,623 cases of the Omicron variant since it was first reported in South Africa last November; The first case was reported on December 2.
The true spread of the Omicron strain in the water remains unclear, due to the delay in genome sequencing of the samples to confirm the new variant.
The government says the Delta variant, which accounted for more than 60% of India’s Covid cases before the third wave, is still active in the country.
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