The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Monday released guidelines for the effective control of COVID-19. This comes after the country recorded 68,020 new coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours, the highest single-day rise since October 2020, taking the nationwide COVID-19 tally to 1,20,39,644.
Registering a steady increase for the 19th day in a row, the active cases have increased to 5,21,808 comprising 4.33 per cent of the total infections, while the recovery rate has further dropped to 94.32 per cent.
Besides, eight states including Maharashtra, Karnataka and Punjab have reported a high number of daily COVID-19 cases and account for 84.5 per cent of the 68,020 fresh cases recorded in the country in a day, the Union Health Ministry said on Monday.
Here are the MHA's guidelines for the States and UTs:
1. Under Test-Track-Treat protocol the new positive cases and their contacts must be isolated/quarantined and provided timely treatment.
2. Containment zones must follow necessary measures such as strict perimeter control, intensive house-to-house surveillance, contact tracing, etc.
3. States/UT Governments should take all necessary measures to promote appropriate behaviour in work places and in public, especially in crowded places.
4. Fines shall be enforced for not wearing face masks, hand hygiene and social distancing.
5. There will no restriction on Inter-State and Intra-State movement of goods and persons.
6. States and UTs must increase the proportion of RT-PCR tests to reach the prescribed level of 70%.
7. National Directives for COVID-19 Management shall continue to be followed throughout the country.
8. State/UT Governments should pace up the vaccination process to cover all priority groups in an expeditious manner.
