As the number of Omicron variant cases rose to 415 on Saturday across the country and more States imposed night curfews and related curbs, the Centre will be deploying Central teams of experts with nodal officers to 10 States that have been either reporting a rapid surge in Omicron and Covid-19 cases or has a slow vaccination pace.
Curb has been announced in Uttar Pradesh from 11 pm to 5 am, starting Saturday amid growing concern over the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant.
The district administration in Gautam Buddh Nagar on Friday imposed Section 144 CrPC across Noida and Greater Noida till December 31 ahead of the upcoming festive season.
Assam has also announced a night curfew which will come into effect from Sunday, December 26 between 11:30 pm and 6 am.
However, this curfew will not be applicable on December 31, 2021.
According to the order issued by the Union Health Ministry on Saturday, these States are Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Mizoram, Karnataka, Bihar, Jharkhand and Punjab. Both Punjab and Uttar Pradesh are in the list where elections are due in two months time.
This comes days after the Allahabad High Court already flagged the Omicron threat, asking the Election Commission and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to consider postponing polls by one or two months in Uttar Pradesh and other States.
"Multi-disciplinary Central teams will be deployed in Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Mizoram, Karnataka, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Punjab to monitor the spike in COVID-19 cases,” the ministry said in a memorandum. Keeping in view of increasing cases of Omicron and COVID 19 cases, several states including MP, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Assam, Haryana and Delhi have imposed restrictions on the gathering and celebrations till further order.
“In view of the rapid surge in cases, and deaths, because of Covid-19… noted in internal reviews, it has been seen that the number of Omicron cases has emerged in some states. It has also been observed that the pace of Covid-19 vaccination in these states is less than the national average. In wake of this situation, a decision has been taken to deploy multi-disciplinary central teams to 10 identified states some of which are either reporting an increasing number of Omicron and Covid-19 cases or slow vaccination pace to aid the efforts of the state and district administration for management of Covid-19,” the memorandum said.
As per the order, the teams have been specifically tasked to look at contact tracing, including surveillance, containment operations; Covid-19 testing including sending of adequate samples from clusters to Insacog lab network for genome sequencing; Covid appropriate behaviour and its enforcement; availability of hospital beds, sufficient logistics including ambulances, ventilators, medical oxygen etc; and Covid-19 vaccination progress. The teams will be stationed in these identified states for three to five days, as per requirement, and will work along with the state health authorities.
“The state-level central teams will assess the situation, suggest remedial actions and submit a report every evening by 7 pm on the public health activities being undertaken to the disaster management cell (health ministry) besides submitting the same to state government…,” the order said.
As per the Health Ministry data, of the total 415 cases of Omicron variant of coronavirus, 115 have recovered or migrated. Maharashtra has recorded a maximum of 108 Omicron cases, followed by Delhi at 79, Gujarat 43, Telangana 38, Kerala 37, Tamil Nadu 34 and Karnataka 31. India's Covid tally rose to 3,47,79,815 with 7,189 fresh cases in the last 24 hours, while the active cases have declined to 77,032. The death toll climbed to 4,79,520 with 387 more fatalities, the data showed. The daily rise in new coronavirus cases has been recorded below 15,000 for the last 58 days now.
The active cases have declined to 77,032 comprising 0.22 per cent of the total infections, the lowest since March 2020, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.40 per cent, the highest since March 2020, the ministry said.