BackCovid-19 situation becoming 'bad to worse' cause for worry, says Govt: 10 points
The Centre also cautioned that if the coronavirus cases increase rapidly, the healthcare system in the country would be 'overwhelmed'
PremiumThe Covid situation in India has been becoming "bad to worse over the last few weeks," the Centre said today. "Trends show the virus is still very active just when we think we can control it, it sparks back," said VK Paul, chairman of the National Expert Committee on Vaccine Administration. He, however, denied that the mutated strains have a role to play in this surge. States are being told to enforce Covid-appropriate behaviour -- "Use the law, use fine... people need to wear a mask," he said. The Centre also cautioned that if the coronavirus cases increase rapidly, the healthcare system in the country would be "overwhelmed".
Here are the 10 big developments in this story:
1) Govt has asked all states and union territories to adopt a district-centric approach to fight the upward swing in cases. Each district, irrespective of whether it is seeing a surge or is with low burden, should formulate an action plan with clear timelines and responsibilities, it said.
2) Eight of the top 10 COVID-19 high-burden districts of the country are from Maharashtra and that Delhi, taken as one district, is also on the list, Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said.
3) He said the 10 districts with maximum active COVID cases are Pune (59,475), Mumbai (46,248), Nagpur (45,322), Thane (35,264), Nashik (26,553), Aurangabad (21,282), Bengaluru Urban (16,259), Nanded (15,171), Delhi (8,032) and Ahmednagar (7,952).
4) Efficient implementation of "Test Track and Treat" remains the only proven strategy for control of transmission
5) The states and UTs that are reporting a surge in cases need to exponentially increase the number of COVID-19 tests. The proportion of RT-PCR tests need to be increased too.
6) About the coronavirus situation in Punjab, Bhushan said in the second week of February 332 daily new cases were recorded which increased to 2,742. The average number of daily deaths was eight in February which has risen to 52. "This signifies that neither are you doing an adequate number of tests nor are you able to promptly isolate (COVID-19) positive people," the health secretary said.
7) Bhushan said the states have been advised to strengthen their healthcare resources. "Those hospitals which were made non-Covid facilities must be converted to dedicated Covid facilities. There should be no delay in strengthening private as well as public health facilities," he said.
8) More than 68,000 new cases were reported on Monday, the most in a day since October. On Tuesday morning, more than 56,000 fresh cases were reported, taking the country's active caseload to nearly 5.5 lakh.
9) According to some experts, the relatively low count of daily jump in new cases(56,211) reported on Tuesday could be because of lower testing on account of the Holi festival on Monday.
10) Union health minister Harsh Vardhan has said there are seven more Covid-19 vaccine candidates in various stages of clinical trials. At present India, has two vaccines - Covishield and Covaxin.
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