Maintaining that Maharashtra is in the beginning of a second wave of Covid-19 pandemic, the Centre on Tuesday asked the Uddhav Thackeray Government to plan for a “worst-case scenario” with sufficient lead time. Maharashtra is witnessing an alarming resurge in Covid-19 cases accounting for 61 percent of all fresh infections recorded countrywide last week.
In the meantime, as a preventive measure Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab have imposed night curfew as well as lockdown in cities like Nagpur, Pune, Nasik and some areas in Uttarakhand. Night curfew has also been imposed in Patiala, Ludhiana, Mohali, and Fatehgarh Sahib.
In view of rising Covid cases in some parts of the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a meeting with the Chief Ministers on Wednesday where further course of action will be decided to ramp up the vaccination programme launched on January 16.
The Centre also has placed a new purchase order with the Serum Institute of India (SII) for the supply of 10 crore doses of the Covishield, each costing `157.50, including GST, according to official sources. The cost of the 10 crore doses would be borne by the health ministry under the budgetary allocation for the purpose.
The aim is to ensure inoculating as many people so as to curb the virus which is resurging in Maharashtra among a few other States.
In its communication to Maharashtra, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said that while the available health infrastructure was adequate, the State needed to look into vaccine hesitancy among front-line workers, “as their services would be required if the trajectory follows the upward swing as is being witnessed now”.
“The State should also expedite vaccinating those with co-morbidities and elderlies. Maharashtra is in the beginning of a second wave of Covid-19 pandemic.
Efforts to track, test, isolate cases and quarantine contacts are limited there with no adherence to Covid-19 appropriate behaviour among people both in rural and urban areas," Bhushan wrote in his letter. Pointing towards contact tracing, the Health Secretary's letter mentioned that the case-contact ratio is more than 1:20 in the state.
According to a Central team that had visited the State recently, some districts were found implementing/contemplating to implement measures such as night curfew, partial lockdowns, weekend lockdowns etc (Aurangabad, Nashik and Jalgaon).
It has recommended that treating physicians should be re-sensitised to clinical
management protocols and keep a close watch on any changes in clinical profile.
“The high case fatality among admitted cases in Vasant Rao Pawar Medical College, Nashik, needs to be investigated in detail, including sending samples for whole genome sequencing,” the team has recommended.
The report was submitted after the Central team visited Mumbai, Thane, Nashik, Dhule, Jalgaon and Aurangabad. Previously, the team had covered the Vidarbha region.
The Health Ministry has now recommended monitoring of the situation at the highest level, strengthened surveillance (as per the containment plan), enhanced involvement of private practitioners, increased testing and reviewing the practice of isolating 80-85 per cent of active cases kept at home.
It added that measures such as night curfews and weekend lockdowns had limited impact on containing/suppressing the transmission. If Mumbai is registering a
sharp upward trend, at least 10 other states/UTs are also showing a significant rise in infections, indicating a wide resurgence of the pandemic in the country.
India has recorded 24,458 new cases on Monday, a shade lower than Sunday’s count of 26,386.
Overall, India reported nearly 1.56 lakh cases during the week. During the week, just seven out of 36 States and Union territories registered a week-on-week fall in cases. On the other hand, seven states registered a rise of more 1,000 cases over the previous week —Maharashtra, where cases rose by a staggering 30,029, Punjab (3,149), Karnataka (1,493), Gujarat (1,324), Chhattisgarh (1,249), Madhya Pradesh (1,074) and Tamil Nadu (1,026).