NEW DELHI: As the active Covid-19 cases in India registered the highest jump in about three months on Thursday, the Cabinet secretary has scheduled a review meeting with seven states. The country recorded 16,738 new cases in 24 hours and the active caseload stood at 1,51,708 on Friday morning, comprising 1.37 per cent of the total positive cases. “This is largely attributable to the upsurge in daily new cases in some states,” said the Union Health Ministry in a statement.
Maharashtra, Kerala, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh have recorded a rise in daily new cases, prompting top bureaucrat Rajiv Gauba to call for a meeting with the chief secretaries of the states to review the situation. These states have contributed 89.57 per cent of the new cases registered on Thursday.Maharashtra continues to report the highest daily new cases at 8,807 and was followed by Kerala with 4,106 cases, while Punjab reported 558 new cases.
The Centre has already deputed high-level multi-disciplinary teams to Kerala, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and J&K to ascertain reasons for the surge and coordinate with the state health departments in Covid-19 control and containment measures.
The Centre has also directed states and UTs to increase testing in a focussed manner in the affected districts with the appropriate split of RT-PCR and rapid antigen tests and to also ensure that all symptomatic negatives of antigen tests are compulsorily tested via RT-PCR tests. “The positive persons are to be promptly isolated or hospitalised, all their close contacts be traced and also tested without delay,” said the ministry.