As Omicron cases in India breach 300-mark, PM Modi chairs COVID review meeting

Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a meeting to review the COVID situation on Thursday. The meeting had in attendance top health officials from the Centre and the state to brief the PM as Omicron's tally breaches the 300-mark in India. Data published by the Union health ministry showed Maharashtra with 65 cases of the new Omicron variant -- the maximum across states. Delhi is second on the list with 64 reported cases. As many as 24 cases have been reported in Telangana, 21 in Rajasthan and 19 in Karnataka.

Meanwhile, in the last 24 hours, India has reported 7,495 new COVID-19 cases. With this, the country's caseload reached 3,47,65,976. India's active caseload currently stands at 78,291, going up by 101 active cases today.

PM Modi chairs COVID review meeting 

In the meeting, PM was briefed of the various actions taken since 25th November 2021 when the first advisory of the Union Health Ministry was shared with the States. Revised travel advisory for international passengers, review meetings with states/UTs on COVID-19 public health response measures, ramping up vaccination, installation of Oxygen supply equipments, etc., was briefed to PM.

After the presentation by officials, PM directed the officials for maintaining a high level of vigil and alertness at all levels. He directed the Centre to work in close coordination with the States to support their efforts of public health measures of containment and management under the ‘Whole of Government’ approach. 

PM Modi's direction to Centre and state officials 

In view of the new variant, we should be Satark and Saavdhan, the PM directed. The fight against the pandemic is not over, he said, and added that the need for continued adherence to COVID safe behaviour is of paramount importance.

• PM directed the officials to ensure that the health systems in the states, beginning from the district level, are strengthened to meet any challenge posed by the new variant. He especially talked about Oxygen supply equipments, and directed the states to make surre that they are installed and fully functiona. 
• He directed the officials to work with the states on a regular basis and review the status of preparedness of various components of health infrastructure including training and capacity building of human resources, timely availability of ambulances, readiness of states to operationalise COVID facilities for institutional quarantining, and effective and supervised monitoring of those in home isolation.
• He directed officials for effective use of IT tools for tele-medicine and tele-consultation.
• He directed heightened and close monitoring of emerging clusters and hotspots through and active, prompt and effective surveillance. 
• He directed for sending a good number of positive samples for genome sequencing to INSACOG Labs in a prompt manner. PM also directed to for accelerating the testing to ensure quick identification of cases for timely containment and treatment. Focus should also be on effective contact tracing for curbing spread of the transmission, he stated.
• He further directed officials that the Central Government should send teams to states with low vaccination, rising cases, insufficient health infrastructure to assist them improve the situation.

The meeting was attended by Cabinet Secretary, Dr. V.K.Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog, Shri. A.K.Bhalla, Home Secretary, Shri. Rajesh Bhushan, Secretary (MoHFW), Secretary (Pharmaceuticals); Dr. Rajesh Gokhale, Secretary (Biotechnology); Dr. Balram Bhargava, DG ICMR; Shri. Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha, Secretary (AYUSH); Shri Durga Shankar Mishra, Secretary (Urban Development); Sh. R.S. Sharma CEO NHA; Prof. K. Vijay Raghavan (Principal Scientific Advisor to Govt. of India) along with other senior officials.