The Health Ministry on Tuesday said the country had seen a dip in Covid-19 cases till February-mid this year, but from then on had registered an increase in many areas.
Here is your cheat sheet to the briefing:
• Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said there are 10 districts across the country that have the most number of active cases – Pune, Mumbai, Nagpur, Thane, Nashik, Aurangabad, Bengaluru Urban, Nanded, Delhi and Ahmednagar. Forty-seven districts of these states were briefed by Heath Ministry officials.
• The government asked them to ramp up testing with focus on RT-PCR tests; implement effective and prompt isolation of those infected and tracing of their close contacts; strengthen public and private health care resources; and to ensure Covid appropriate behavior. The government also asked them to saturate vaccination for priority age groups in districts reporting surge in cases.
• The Ministry said there was a five times-rise in cases, and that without effective tracing and isolating “we let the virus go out of control”, while warning that the situation could now be considered “severe”.
• The weekly national average positivity rate is 5.65%. Maharashtra has a weekly average of 23%, Punjab has a weekly average of 8.82%, Chhattisgarh 8%, Madhya Pradesh 7.82%, Tamil Nadu 2.50%, Karnataka 2.45%, Gujarat 2.2% & Delhi 2.04%, he said.
• Bhushan said Punjab was not doing enough testing nor was able to isolate positive people.
• He also pointed out how out of the top ten worst-affected districts in India, eight were in Maharashtra, and one each in Delhi and Bengaluru. Niti Aayog member Dr VK Paul said, “Maharashtra needs to fight better.” He suggested testing, containment, contract tracing, covid appropriate behaviour and vaccination as a five-pronged approach to fight the rising coronavirus cases.
• Total doses of vaccination administered so far stands at 6,11,13,354, and according to a government survey, 97% people were satisfied with overall vaccine experience.
• The government said 806 cases had been reported of the UK variant of the coronavirus, 47 of the South African variant and one of the Brazilian.
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