Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a meeting to review the Covid situation as the number of new infections threatened to spiral out of control, due to the highly infectious strain of Omicron bacteria.
Union Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, and senior government officials were present at the meeting. The Chief of Office of the Railways Department and the Secretary of the Ministry of Civil Aviation were also present at the meeting.
This is Prime Minister Modi’s first Covid review meeting since December 24, when the Omicron variant just appeared in the country. Compared to that time, the number of Covid has skyrocketed, with hundreds of doctors and medical staff contracting the virus.
Tomorrow, the country will take the important step of initiating a third dose of the “preventive” vaccine for health care workers and vulnerable elderly people. Immunizations for teenagers aged 15 to 18 years old began last week.
On the other hand, the upcoming elections in five states – including the most populous Uttar Pradesh state – have added another challenge for frontline workers trying to control the pandemic. Only 52% of people have received both doses of the vaccine in Uttar Pradesh.
Similar figures have been reported from several other states – making the need to immunize a critical mass of people by 90% within a month a race against time.
Ministry of Health data this morning showed that the whole country recorded 1,59,632 cases of fresh coronavirus in the previous 24 hours, bringing the total to 3,55,28,004 crore, including 3,623 cases of Omicron infection.
While the official Omicron figure appears to be low due to the lack of full genome sequencing laboratories, the country’s useless R-value – indicating the spread of the infection – has been recorded. received these 4 weeks, a number higher than the 1.69 recorded at the height of the second wave.
Along with that, the Omicron variant has been officially declared by the Indian Medical Research Council as the dominant circulating bacterium, the nodal organ in the fight against Covid.
Maximum new cases are being logged in Delhi and Maharashtra.
Today, Delhi is expecting more than 22,000 new Covid cases – slightly lower than the 26,169 cases on April 23 at the peak of the second wave driven by the Delta variant.
The positivity rate jumped to 19.60%, close to numbers that would warrant further restrictions.
Minister Arvind Kejriwal said there would be no lockdown if everyone followed protocol – wearing masks and maintaining social distancing.
“We don’t want to do the lockdown right now… we want to keep the curbs as limited as possible, so the average person isn’t affected. Tomorrow there will be a DDMA (Regulatory Authority) meeting.” disaster Delhi) and we will review the situation again,” he said.
Maharashtra announced a new set of restrictions as it recorded 41,434 new Covid cases on Saturday. 13 people died in the last 24 hours – 5 of them in Mumbai. The country’s financial capital reported 20,318 cases.
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