India’s active coin downloads increased by 2.85 lakh this time last week to over 11.1 lakh today
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today held an online meeting with several ministers amid a spike in the number of Covid-19 cases nationwide over the past week.
The Prime Minister has asked all state leaders to ensure adequate health infrastructure at the district level and accelerate the vaccination of children aged 15 to 18 years.
Attendees included Ashok Gehlot (Rajasthan), Himanta Biswa Sarma (Assam), Charanjit Channi (Punjab), V Narayanasamy (Puducherry), Bhupesh Baghel (Chhattisgarh) and Biplab Deb (Tripura).
Basavaraj Bommai (Karnataka) and Zoramthanga (Mizoram) also signed in, as did Home Minister Amit Shah and Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya.
The prime minister also held a meeting on Sunday in which he met with Mr Shah, Mr Mandaviya and senior government officials and stressed the need to scale up testing and genome sequencing.
New curbs have been imposed by states to test the spread of new infections.
The spike in cases comes as five states – including politically important and populous Uttar Pradesh – prepare to hold parliamentary elections in the next two months. Others who voted were Punjab (one of the few remaining states ruled by Parliament), Goa, Manipur and Uttarakhand.
With a sharp increase in cases in the poll-bound states – on Sunday the UP reported a 1300% increase in cases in a week and 16 of the 22 Punjab districts have a positive rate. above 5% – there have been tough calls to postpone the election.
However, the Election Commission rejected these calls, pointing to the Constitution and saying it would publish rules to minimize the spread of the virus during campaigning and voting.
The polling agency has banned physical events and protests until January 15.
The government has also rolled out vaccinations for children aged 15 to 18, as well as boosters or ‘precautions’ for frontline workers and those over 60 with comorbidities.
This morning, India reported more than 2.47 thousand new cases in the last 24 hours – an increase of 25% from yesterday and a staggering 172% from a week ago.
The active download of this country has increased by 2.85 lakh at this time last week to over 11.1 lakh today.
The third wave of Covid infections in India is being fueled, in part, by the significantly more contagious Omicron variant first reported in South Africa last November.
The first case in India was on December 2nd and as of this morning, almost 5,000 people have been confirmed. However, experts warn the number could be much higher due to the slow pace of genome sequencing.
With input from ANI
.
