The country saw a sharp spike in Covid-19 cases during the last 24 hours, crossing the 4000 in a day after nearly three months, prompting the Centre to ask five States—Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, and Telangana to closely monitor emerging clusters, maintain an adequate number of tests, and send samples from infected individuals for genome sequencing.
This has stoked fears of the emergence of another wave in some parts of the States that have eased almost all restrictions.
The spurt in Covid cases particularly in these five states saw overall infections in India in a single day to above 4,000 after 84 days, taking the tally of Covid-19 cases to 4,31,68,585. However, what has come as a relief, for now, is that there has been no spurt in hospitalization and most infections are only mildly symptomatic.
In a letter to the five states, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan asked them to keep a vigil on patients with influenza-like illnesses and severe acute respiratory syndrome to detect early signs of the spread of the coronavirus infection.
In comparison to 15,708 Covid-19 cases noted across India in the week ending May 27, the number has increased to 21,055 this week, Bhushan said in his letter to the state health secretaries. The weekly test positivity had also risen from 0.52 to 0.73 percent within one week, he added.
As per the letter, 11 districts in Kerala, two districts in Tamil Nadu, one district in Karnataka, and six districts in Maharashtra have reported an uptick in new cases and COVID-19 test positivity rate over the last few days.
"There are few states which are reporting a higher contribution to India's cases indicating the possibility of a localised spread of the infection," said the letter. "There is, therefore, a need to follow a risk assessment-based approach on the public health responses without losing the gains made so far in the fight against the pandemic." The Covid=19 data shows that even though 24 states and Union Territories on Friday recorded the rise in Covid-19 cases, the highest daily rise was from Kerala and Maharashtra. Kerala also has the highest load of Covid-19 cases, followed by Maharashtra.