PM to meet CMs of all states tomorrow; to discuss Covid strategy

- With partial lockdowns being imposed in some states, there are fears that adverse outcome will impact the economic activities and contain growth
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi will host a meeting with CMs of all states via video conferencing on Thursday amid rising cases of Covid-19 across the country, with numbers set to cross all time highs in several places.
With partial lockdowns being imposed in some states, there are fears that adverse outcome will impact the economic activities and contain growth.
People privy to the development said the Prime Minister is likely to discuss state level strategies to counter the third wave of the pandemic and take suggestions of the states for preparing an action plan to be implemented on national level.
The rapid increase in Covid cases in the country is fuelled by the Omicron variant, which is highly transmissible and believed to be more resilient to the vaccines. This variant is believed to have three dozen mutations and spreads faster than the Delta variant.
The related fatalities have also gone up, as 120 districts in 29 states and Union Territories report a weekly positivity rate of 10 percent, indicated by the data released by the Union Health Ministry. The variant is believed to be not as dangerous as the Delta variant during the second wave, even though the far-reaching impacts are still unknown.
“Testing is the backbone for curbing the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 as it helps early detection of cases and their isolation and contact tracing," the Indian Council of Medical Research said in the document detailing the weekly positivity rate. The data came from states and laboratories in the ICMR portal.
India stands at the second place after United States on the WHO’s dashboard for the countries most affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Also read: Omicron will infect everybody, says top US expert Fauci as Covid cases soar