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The government has strongly appealed to the people not to lower their guard in the fight against Coronavirus as the threat of the virus is not over. Addressing the media in New Delhi, Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry Lav Agarwal referred to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks during his first meeting with the Council of Ministers about violation of COVID appropriate behaviour by the people.
He said, the Prime Minister expressed concern over this situation saying that over the past few days, pictures and videos of crowded places and people roaming about without masks and social distancing have been emerging. Mr Modi said, this is not a pleasant sight and it should instil a sense of fear in us. Mr Agarwal said that the Prime Minister told the Council that as ministers, our aim should not be to instil fear but to request people to keep taking all possible precautions so that we are able to move beyond this pandemic in the times to come.
During his presentation, Mr Agarwal cited the examples of some of the countries including, UK, Russia and Bangladesh where a surge in cases are being noticed. Mr Agarwal said, people should introspect that they should not do those kinds of works which give an invitation to the virus to spread. He said, giving relaxation in restrictions does not mean that the pandemic is over and people should continue to follow COVID safe behaviour.
Speaking about the current situation of pandemic, Lav Aggarwal said that the country is registering a continuous decline in daily cases of COVID-19 and further increase in rate of recovery from infection in the past seven to eight weeks. He said that continuous decline in daily cases is being noticed since India reported a peak with nearly 4.14 lakh cases on 7th May. He said, in the last 24 hours only 43 thousand 393 cases of corona infection were reported. Mr Aggarwal said in the last one week, there has been a drop of 9 per cent in daily reported cases of COVID-19.
Mr Agarwal also informed that till 4th of May, there were 531 districts in the country which were reporting over 100 cases daily, now the number has come down to 86 districts. He informed that till 10th May there were over 37 lakh active cases in the country and after that a continuous decline in such cases were noticed and now it has come down to the level of 4.58 lakh cases. On recovery rate from the infection, Mr Agarwal said that the country is also witnessing a consistent increase in recovery rate. He said, on 3rd May, the overall recovery rate was 81.8 per cent and now it has reached the mark of 97.2 per cent.
Mr Aggarwal also informed that there are 90 districts in the country which constitute 80 per cent of the reported cases out of which 15 districts are from Maharashtra and 14 from Kerala. He said, in these districts there is a need of intensive containment through focussed attention.
On testing of samples, there is continued focus on testing while a sharp decline in cases is being observed. He said, currently 18 lakh tests of COVID -19 on average are being conducted on a daily basis.
Mr Agarwal said, India has crossed the vaccination coverage of 36 crore mark and reached 36.9 crore vaccine doses.
During the media briefing, NITI Aayog Member, Health Dr V K Paul also reiterated the government’s appeal saying that people must take all precautionary measures and follow COVID appropriate behaviour like wearing of masks and maintaining social distance at all times including tourist sites. He said, the complacency in the fight against the pandemic may have serious effects and cases will go up like other countries. He said, we must not give opportunities to the virus to spread as by great efforts the cases of COVID-19 have been brought down.
On the issue of vaccination of pregnant women, Dr Paul said, the guidelines for vaccination of pregnant women have been issued last week after deep discussions and evaluation of scientific data. He informed that scientific data is in favour of pregnant women receiving the three vaccines. He also said that the virus can cause more serious illness in pregnant women than the normal person and therefore the pregnant women should receive the vaccine.
