The Centre on Wednesday said the coronavirus situation in Maharashtra and Punjab is cause of “grave concern”. It said that nine out of 10 districts with the highest active coronavirus cases are in Maharashtra, while the other is in Karnataka.
This comes as the government is struggling with the highest single-day tally of new infections and deaths this year. Only the United States and Brazil have higher coronavirus cases than India.
“The top 10 districts where maximum active cases are concentrated are Pune, Nagpur, Mumbai, Thane, Nashik, Aurangabad, Bengaluru Urban, Nanded, Jalgaon and Akola,” Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said during a briefing on the coronavirus situation in India. “Nine districts from Maharashtra and one from Karnataka.” The district in Karnataka is Bengaluru Urban.
Besides Maharashtra and Punjab, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh are of concern too, the health ministry said.
“Gujarat reporting around 1,700 cases daily and Madhya Pradesh around 1500 cases,” Bhushan said. “Most cases in Gujarat concentrated in Surat, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Rajkot and Bhavnagar [districts]. In Madhya Pradesh, it is concentrated in Bhopal, Indore, Jabalpur, Ujjain and Betul.”
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In Maharashtra, the Union health secretary said that the top five districts with the highest active cases are Pune, Nagpur, Mumbai, Thane and Nashik. In Punjab, the top five districts with the most number of active cases are Jalandhar, SAS Nagar, Ludhiana, Patiala, and Hoshiarpur.
“On Saturday, a meeting will be held with the authorities of these districts along with the health officials of Punjab and Maharashtra,” Bhushan said. “The meeting will focus on refinement of strategies related to the coronavirus situation.”
The Union health ministry said that the other states that have shown a surge in Covid-19 cases are Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh and Chandigarh.
On vaccinations, the health secretary said that protection against Covid-19 was enhanced if the second dose of Covishield is “administered between six to eight weeks, but not later than stipulated period of eight weeks”. “[The] revised time interval between two doses is applicable only to Covishield and not to Covaxin,” the Centre said. The time interval for Covaxin is four to six weeks.
The Centre on Tuesday announced that it will start inoculating people above 45 years in the third phase of the countrywide vaccination programme from April 1.
During Wednesday’s briefing, Bhushan said the provision of vaccinating only those with co-morbidities was eliminated. “88% of all Covid-19 deaths are occurring among those aged 45 and above,” he said. “This group is the most vulnerable population group and needs to be protected first.”
NITI Aayog (Health) member VK Paul said there were “three variants of concern” in the country. “Three variants are of concern...UK variant is especially prevalent in certain areas...Punjab seems to have a high number of them and so does Delhi,” he said. “South African and Brazil’s variants are the other two.”
He also noted the susceptibility of India’s population and the need to follow guidelines to rein in the pandemic. “We still have very high susceptible population in the country...which is the biggest risk factor...it is nearly 75% in India,” Paul added.
When asked if there were any new symptoms for the “double variant” cases detected in India, the Centre said: “There has been no evidence that there are new symptoms for the new variants.”
Earlier on Wednesday, the Union health ministry said that a new “double mutant variant” of the coronavirus and “variants of concern” have been detected in 18 states in India. The ministry, however, added that the new strain has not been found in sufficient numbers to establish or explain the rapid rise in cases in some states.
India on Wednesday registered 47,262 new coronavirus cases. With this, India’s tally rose to 1,17,34,058. The toll climbed by 275 to 1,60,441.
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