Guard against laxity in Covid-19 fight; bring fatality rate under 1%: PM Modi to CMs

Modi asked them to work towards bringing the positive rate to less than 5 per cent and the fatality rate to under 1 per cent

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday asked the chief ministers of eight severely Covid-19 impacted states to take urgent steps for dispelling people’s false sense of security on novel coronavirus infection, which is fueling a rising trend in the pandemic in those states.

“With increasing recovery rate, people have developed a false notion of security from the virus, thus, leading to a rise in instances of negligence. The trend of an increase in the spread of the pandemic in countries where its impact was earlier lessening, is being seen in some (Indian) states as well, which necessitates greater caution by the administration,” Modi told the chief ministers.

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Many Indian states are currently witnessing a rising trend in the daily number of fresh infections, which may have happened due to people lowering their guards during the Dussehra-Diwali festivities. Last week, the Union Health Ministry had sent teams to eight states to aid the state authorities in their battle against the epidemic.

Modi reviewed the Covid-19 situation with eight high focus states - Haryana, Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Gujarat and West Bengal. Subsequently in a separate meeting, he discussed the modalities of Covid-19 vaccine delivery, distribution and administration with all the states and asked them to keep their cold chain network ready.

With many states using the rapid antigen tests more despite the technique’s inability to pick up half of the cases, the Prime Minister stressed on enhanced use of the gold standard RT-PCR tests with the aim of bringing down the positivity rate to 5 per cent and fatality rate to 1 per cent.

On the vaccine front, he discussed the requirements of additional cold chain storage with the states as the hope for getting a Covid-19 vaccine at least for doctors, front line workers and the vulnerable within the next few months, brightens.

Earlier, Health Ministry officials had pointed out that that there were 28,000 cold chain points and 700 plus refrigerated vans that would be put to use for the Covid-19 vaccination programme. There are also 70,000 plus trained individuals to administer the vaccine but efforts are on to find out more.

Modi asked the chief ministers to ensure regular monitoring through the state level steering committee and district level task force in order to curb the epidemic.

India’s Covid-19 tally stands at 91.77 lakh on Tuesday with the addition of 37,975 fresh cases in the last 24 hours. The toll is 1,34,218 of which 480 were added in the same period. Delhi tops the list of states with the maximum number of new cases and deaths.