COVID-19 situation in India seems to go back to square one as various states in the country are noticing a surge in the cases, with Maharashtra topping the list. While addressing a press conference, Union Health Ministey Secretary, Rajesh Bhushan said that 60% of all active cases are concentrated in Maharashtra. The lowest point of new COVID-19 cases was observed on February 9, unlike today, nearly by 43% there is an increase in new cases and deaths have been increased by nearly 37% since last few weeks.
Maharashtra being at the top in the list is hinting towards second wave as the state recorded 17,864 on March 16. Yesterday, the Centre too had told the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maharashtra government that the state was "in the beginning of a second wave of Covid" and that there was a lack of Covid-appropriate behavior and "tracking and testing of cases"
On the other hand Karnataka's case positivity rate has gone up by 1.3%. The ministry has adviced the state government is to increase the absolute number of tests as 'Testing, Tracing and Treatment' has been effectively followed in many states to curb the spread.
Followed by Kerala with 1,970 while Punjab reported 1,463 new cases, the ministry said. "Punjab's positivity rate is now 6.8% which is worrying", Bhushan said.. "This shows that COVID-19 appropriate behaviour is not being followed in the state", he added.
While talking about New Delhi, the Secy said,"In the last 24 hours, more than 400 cases have been reported in the city. Positivity rate is less than 1%, however, it has increased from 0.4% to 0.6%"
Revealing the stats of the COVID-19 vaccination, Bhushan said, till now, 3.51 crore total doses of COVID19 vaccine administrated. But he complained about the wastage of vax being done by Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Around 17.6% and 11.6 % of vaccine wastage has been recorded in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh respectively. India's overall percentage of vaccine wastage stands at 6.5% but the ministry has told the states to reduce the drastic wastage.
The massive COVID-19 vax drive in India was started on 16th January and around 3.51 crore have benifited with the dose, but a Parliamentary Panel on Home affair had expressed concern over the pace of the drive as it would take long time to vaccinate such a large population.
India's Covid cases started spiking last March and in September we saw upto 97,000 cases daily. That reduced to 9,000 over the last two months, but the figure has been moving up again. In the past 24-hours, 28,903 fresh cases were recorded creating a worrisome situation.
