There is no let up in the renewed rise in daily new cases in States like Maharashtra, Kerala, Punjab, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh.
A total of 16,738 new daily Covid-19 cases have been recorded in a span of 24 hours taking the total tally of active infection to 1,51,708.
The Union Health Ministry said 89.57 per cent of the new cases are from the seven states with Maharashtra continuing to top the chart at the highest daily new cases at 8,807. It is followed by Kerala with 4,106 cases while Punjab reported 558 new cases. In fact, Maharashtra reported 80 deaths, highest in two months (since December 24, when 89 deaths were reported). With this, the total cases in the State jumped to 21,21,119 and the toll touched 51,937. The Centre has already deputed high-level multi-disciplinary teams there to ascertain reasons for the surge and coordinate with the state health departments in Covid-19 control and containment measures.
The Centre has also written to states and UTs to focus on undertaking aggressive measures to break the chain of transmission.
States and UTs have been advised to increase testing in a focussed manner in the affected districts with the appropriate split of RT-PCR and rapid antigen tests and to also ensure that all symptomatic negatives of antigen tests are compulsorily tested via RT-PCR tests.
The positive persons are to be isolated/hospitalised, all their close contacts be traced and also tested without delay. They have been advised to critically review the emerging situation on a regular basis with district officials concerned to ensure that gains made so far in Covid-19 management are not lost.
India has administered over 1.30 Crore vaccine doses so far. A total of 1,30,67,047 vaccine doses have been given through 2,77,303 Sessions, as per the provisional report till 6 pm on Thursday. These include 65,82,007 HCWs (75.5%) who have taken the 1st dose and 18,60,859 HCWs (63.6%) who have taken the 2nd dose, along with 46,24,181 frontline workers (FLWs) (1st dose) (45.1%). While the countrywide vaccination drive was rolled out on 16th Jan 2021
Vaccination of the FLWs started on 2nd Feb 2021. Just eight states account for more than 56 per cent of the total vaccine doses.