As Covid virus continues its Northward journey with more than 3,000 cases reported second day in a row on Friday morning, the Tamil Nadu has become a first State to make wearing of face masks mandatory at all government hospitals across the State from Saturday i.e. April 1. Delhi Government has already advised its citizens to wear the masks whenever in the public areas.
Sources said that if the Covid surge continues, other States may join the suit and make the mask mandatory. In fact, since the beginning of March, there is a continuous rise in the corona cases. In the meantime, the World Health Organization (WHO) has issued revised recommendations for prioritising the use of COVID-19 vaccines to reflect the impact of Omicron and high population-level immunity due to infection and vaccination.
According to the Ministry data, 3,095 new Covid cases were registered in India on Thursday (30 March). This figure is the highest in the last six months.
Now the number of active cases in the country has reached 15,208. “The country has seen a rise in the number of new Covid cases in the last few days amid a spurt in the data of H3N2 Influenza cases. More than 3000 cases have been reported for the second consecutive day. Earlier on Wednesday (March 29), 3,016 new Covid-19 cases were registered. Also, currently the recovery rate is 98.78 percent,” said an official from the Ministry.
With 3,852 cases, Kerala tops the list of infections in the country, followed by 3016 active cases in Maharashtra, then 2247 in Gujarat, 1037 in Karnataka, 932 in Delhi.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the government has been testing sewage to pre-empt a possible return of the virus. All the cases are also being sent for genome sequencing to timely identify new variants if any, he said.