Citing the election rallies, polls as one of the reasons for a surge in the COVID-19 cases by many health experts, politicians, on the contrary Home Minister Amit Shah has said that the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic has reached states where there have been no elections, hence linking the wave to the polls, as per him, is “not right”.
As per a report in Indian Express, the Home Minister said that the COVID-19 situation in the country, at the present moment, does not warrant a “lockdown in a hurry”.
On being told that unlike the first wave, there doesn’t seem to be a sense of urgency or emergency at the Centre, during the second wave, Shah said, “That’s not true.”
He said further, “There were two meetings with Chief Ministers and I was also present…Consultations have happened with scientists on the vaccination front…preparations to fight this are full-fledged. The pace (of spread) this time is so high that it is a bit difficult to fight. But I am confident that we will have a victory over this."
Commenting on the vaccination drive, he said, "Our vaccination programme was the fastest in the world. In the first 10 days, the number of people who got vaccinated was the highest in India. After the first shot, there has to be a gap and the second one cannot be expedited. I do not agree that there’s a shortage."
India appears to be setting a new record every day when it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic.
For the last four days, the single day case tally has reached dizzying heights, repeatedly breaching the two lakh mark. Data from the Health Ministry on Sunday morning indicated that in the last 24 hours, a whopping 2,61,500 new cases had been reported. At the same time, there were 1,38,423 discharges and 1,501 deaths in the last 24 hours.
