Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Tuesday chair a virtual meeting with the Chief Ministers of the eight worst Covid-hit states to review the pandemic situation, top government sources said. The PM is expected to discuss with the states the cause for a surge in Covid numbers and what the respective states are doing to curb the spike.
PM Modi’s meeting is scheduled to start at 10:30 am and will be conducted in two parts, sources said. First, he is likely to interact with the CMs of the eight worst-affected states and Union Territories; and then he will hold a discussion with the CMs and L-G’s of all the states and UTs on vaccine delivery, sources said.
The focus of the meeting is likely to be the development of a mechanism for efficient delivery of Covid-19 vaccine and identification of priority beneficiaries, sources added.
Meanwhile, as India’s coronavirus tally on Monday crossed the 91 lakh-mark, Delhi, Kerala and Maharashtra continued to report the largest number of daily cases in the country. The national capital saw 6,746 fresh infections in a day, followed by Maharashtra and Kerala with about 5,200 to 5,700 cases respectively. West Bengal registered almost 3,600 cases followed by Rajasthan, which saw its highest numbers yet in the last 24 hours at 3,260.
The Centre is also worried about rise in Covid cases in smaller states like Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat.
Coming to Delhi, its overall Covid tally has gone up to 5,34,317. As per government records, from November 1 to November 23, the national capital reported 1,950 deaths, which is 22.9 per cent of the total fatalities caused by the virus in Delhi. The city had reported 118 deaths on Friday, while 111 fatalities were reported on Saturday. The infection rate remained as high as 11.94 per cent while the case fatality rate stood at 1.59 per cent.
Currently, 9,464 out of 17,553 beds are occupied in the hospitals, 527 out of 8,217 beds in the dedicated Covid Care Centres and 184 out of 562 beds in the dedicated Covid Health Centres. Over 22,700 people are in home isolation. The number of containment zones has been raised to 4,692.
November is turning out to be the most precarious month for the national capital in managing the Covid-19 pandemic. The cases in Delhi have surged in their third and the deadliest wave so far, with the positivity rate (the number of those infected as a percentage of those tested) spiking to 15 per cent.
WITH AGENCY INPUTS