Prime Minister Narendra Modi is holding a meeting to review the COVID situation as the number of fresh infections driven by the highly infectious strain Omicron threatens to spiral out of control.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya and senior government officials are present in the meeting. The Chief of Railway Board and Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation are also present in the meeting.
This is PM Modi’s first COVID review meeting since December 24, when the Omron edition made its presence felt in the country. Compared to then, the number of COVID-19 cases has skyrocketed, with hundreds of doctors and healthcare workers infected with the virus.
Tomorrow, the country is taking the important step of introducing a third “precautionary” vaccine dose for healthcare workers and vulnerable senior citizens. Vaccination of 15 to 18 year olds started last week.
On the other hand, elections in five states, including the most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, have added another challenge to the frontline workers trying to control the pandemic. In Uttar Pradesh, only 52 per cent people have received both doses of the vaccine.
Similar figures have emerged from some other states – a critical mass of 90 per cent of the people needed to double within a month in a race against time.
Health ministry data this morning showed that the country witnessed 1,59,632 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, taking the tally to 3,55,28,004 crore, including 3,623 cases of Omicron.
While the official omicron figure appears low due to a lack of adequate genome sequencing laboratories, the country’s R-zero value – which indicates the spread of infection – was recorded at 4 this week, higher than the 1.69 logged at 1.69. The figure of the second wave.
With this, the Omicron variant has been officially declared as the major circulating strain by the Indian Council of Medical Research, the nodal body in the fight against COVID.
The maximum number of fresh cases are being reported in Delhi and Maharashtra.
Today, Delhi is expecting over 22,000 fresh Covid cases – slightly less than 26,169 cases on April 23 at the peak of the second wave driven by the delta variant.
The positivity rate has already gone up to 19.60 per cent, which is close to the number that may warrant further restrictions.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has said that there will be no lockdown if people follow the protocol – wear face masks and maintain social distance.
“We don’t want to impose lockdown right now… We want to keep the restrictions as limited as possible, so that the common man is not affected. Tomorrow is the DDMA (Delhi Disaster Management Agency) meeting, and we will review the situation again,” he said. .
Maharashtra has already announced a series of new restrictions as it recorded 41,434 new Covid cases on Saturday. 13 people died in the last 24 hours out of which five were in Mumbai. The country’s financial capital recorded 20,318 cases.
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