Fresh curbs in Maha; Centre asks states to tighten surveillance, speed up vaccination

Mumbai/New Delhi: The Maharashtra government and district administration are on high alert mode due to a sudden spike in the Coronavirus cases in the past few days. To curb the outbreak, a 7-day lockdown has been announced in many areas.

Amravati district in Maharashtra's Vidarbha region will be placed under a week-long lockdown from 8 pm on February 22. The lockdown will be in force till 8 am on March 1. The Pune district administration also announced curbs, including restrictions on the movement of people from 11 PM to 6 AM for non-essential

activities.

Also on Sunday, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray announced that religious, social and political gatherings will be prohibited in the state from Monday.

Asking people to follow "COVID-appropriate" behaviour and safety norms, he said he would observe for a week to 15 days and then decide whether to impose another lockdown.

"Wear masks, observe discipline and maintain social distancing to avoid another lockdown," Thackeray told the people of the state.

Apart from the week-long lockdown in Amravati, certain restrictions will be in place in four other districts of the Amravati division- Akola, Washim, Buldhana and Yavatmal.

Only 25 people will be allowed to attend weddings. At the same time, only 15 per cent of the employees in private offices will be allowed to come. Also, schools and colleges will remain closed.

Maharashtra reported 6,971 new Coronavirus cases on Sunday, which pushed the state's infection tally to over 21 lakh. This is for the third consecutive day that the number of cases has gone past the 6,000-mark.

The Mumbai suburban areas have seen a weekly rise in cases by 19 per cent. In Nagpur, Amravati, Nashik, Akola and Yavatmal the weekly cases have increased by 33 per cent, 47 per cent, 23 per cent, 55 per cent and 48 per cent, respectively.

Meanwhile, India has recorded a steady rise in the COVID-19 active cases over the past few days with a surge in daily infections in five states, sparking fears of a second wave and prompting the Centre to direct these states to refocus on strict surveillance, containment and RT-PCR-testing.

Along with Maharashtra, the states of Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab and the union territory of Jammu & Kashmir have also seen a surge in daily cases, according to the Union Health Ministry, which said 85.61 per cent of the new cases are from these five states and their weekly positivity rate is more than the national average of 1.79 per cent.

According to the health ministry on Sunday, the active cases were pegged at 1,45,634, with more than 74 per cent of them in Kerala and Maharashtra.

The Union Health Ministry has also written to all states and UTs on the need to significantly enhance the pace of COVID-19 vaccinations, while experts have cautioned against letting the guard down or factoring in "herd immunity" which could be "very difficult" to achieve due to the "variant strains".

India has made considerable gains in controlling the pandemic with 22 states and UTs not reporting any COVID-19 death in a span of 24 hours.

However, daily COVID-19 cases increased for the fourth consecutive day with 14,264 new cases on Sunday, taking the total tally to 1,09,91,651, while the death toll increased to 1,56,302 with 90 more fatalities.

The five states which are now a cause of concern have been advised by the Centre to improve the overall testing numbers by focusing on increasing the proportion of RT-PCR tests.

It has asked them to refocus on strict and comprehensive surveillance as well as stringent containment in selected districts and conduct regular monitoring of the mutant strains through testing followed by genome sequencing, as well as monitoring of the emerging cluster of cases.

They have also been asked to pay attention to clinical management in districts reporting higher deaths.

AIIMS, Delhi director Randeep Guleria stressed on the importance of vaccination, which he said is essential in India's fight against the Coronavirus.

"Herd immunity is something that is going to be very, very difficult to achieve and it is something one should not really think of in practical terms... because the variant strains and varying immunity with times can lead to a chance where people may have reinfection or get the infection again," he said.

India's cumulative vaccination coverage has crossed 1.10 crore. However, the Union Health Ministry has written to all states and UTs on the need to significantly enhance the pace of COVID-19 vaccinations, noting that a large number of healthcare and frontline workers remain to be covered.

In a letter addressed to chief secretaries of all states and UTs, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said the number of days of vaccination in a week should also be increased to a minimum of four days at the earliest to speed up the process of vaccination and gear up the system to take up the vaccination of the 50+ population.

Till February 21, a total of 1,10,85,173 vaccine doses have been administered through 2,30,888 sessions, as per the provisional report till 8 am.