Mumbai: The Centre has raised alarm after the coronavirus positive cases crossed 10,000 on March 5. The Centre’s strong message to the Maharashtra Government is to ramp up ‘’Testing, Tracking and Treatment’’ on a war footing. The Centre has swung into action and dispatched a multi-disciplinary team to assist the state government in its efforts to contain the spread of infection. The high-level team is headed by Dr P Ravindran, Senior CMO, Disaster Management Cell.
Maharashtra, Kerala, Punjab, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu reported a higher number of Covid-19 daily cases, accounting for 82% of the new cases reported in the past 24 hours.
The health ministry has warned that the spurt in cases and its spread can pose high risk of transmission to the neighbouring states and union territories. It has asked the state to track 20 persons of the Covid patient and cited that it was not done in many districts. The multi-disciplinary team has been sent to Maharashtra as the Centre has been leading the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic with a ‘Whole of Government’ and ‘Whole of Society’ approach under the umbrella strategy of ‘Cooperative Federalism’.
The Centre’s move is important as Amravati, Akola, Washim, Buldhana and Yavatmal have emerged hot spots in the wake of spike in COVID 19 cases. What is worrying the Centre has communicated to the state is also a surge in cases in Mumbai despite BMC’s slew of curbs.
A senior officer from the state health department told Free Press Journal, ‘’ The Centre has laid emphasis on prompt isolation and on medical supervision of those active cases presently in-home isolation for early identification of progressive deterioration of the disease. The States were also asked actively watch out for super-spreading events and share their best practices in breaking the chain of transmission.’’
Further, he said the Centre has asked the government to improve overall testing in districts reporting reduction in testing, increase share of RT-PCR tests in districts dependent on high levels of antigen testing and refocus on surveillance and stringent containment of those areas in selected districts which are seeing clusters of cases. Furthermore, the Centre has asked the government to focus on clinical management in districts reporting higher deaths, accelerate vaccination for priority population groups in districts reporting higher cases.
‘’The Centre wants the state to make optimal use of the available vaccine doses and focus on critical districts and collaborate with the private hospitals to open up vaccination time-tables for a minimum of 15 days and maximum of 28 days at a time,’’ said the officer.
