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As Covid cases rise in the Maharashtra, the state government has drafted eleven action points for all districts to follow in order to curb the spread of the virus.
“The number of daily Covid cases in the state is low, but we cannot discontinue surveillance or become less vigilant," said the state’s Covid task force member Dr Shashank Joshi. “All districts therefore should promote voluntary indoor masking, not let their testing numbers fall and conduct genome sequencing wherever necessary," he said.
According to Joshi, the ongoing heatwave calls for extra vigilance as all the previous waves have surged in hot weather conditions. “The third wave is definitely over, but we cannot be caught off guard if a new surge happens," he said.
The state’s weekly positivity rate is now around 0.73% but as many as nine districts have a positivity rate higher than the state’s average. These include Dhule (4.83%), Pune (1.52%), Akola (1.42), Sindhudurg (1.34%), Hingoli (1.31%), Mumbai (1.07%), Parbhani (1%), Gondia (0.79%) and Kolhapur (0.74%).
The eleven point actions include increased Covid-19 tests, sending samples for genome sequencing when a cluster of three to seven cases is found, getting people to wear masks in closed spaces such as cinema halls, offices and auditoriums, promoting vaccination.
The letter issued by additional chief secretary Dr Pradeep Vyas early this week has also mandated all districts to complete the ongoing work on oxygen generation plants and also keep the current oxygen storage full.
Given the continuous circulation of the virus, the state has also asked districts to improve influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) surveillance and promote vaccination in all categories. The state warned the districts about the low vaccination average in all categories compared to the national average.
“Following the letter from the state, we called for a meeting with all the health officials and have asked them to focus on awareness about wearing masks and vaccination," said Dr Yogesh Sale, the district health officer of Kolhapur.
