With a slow but steady rise in Covid cases in many parts of the world, the Maharashtra public health department has issued an advisory to district and civic authorities, asking them not to lower their guard but instead, to be vigilant and avoid the spread of the coronavirus. The department’s additional chief secretary, Pradeep Vyas, in his letter has called upon district and civic authorities to be alert, as a new variant is suspected to be fuelling infections in Israel and other countries.
Vyas has asked authorities to take the necessary steps to avoid crowding, emphasize the need for appropriate masking and to remain alert in identifying clusters of SARI and ILI cases and step up surveillance. Besides, he has stressed on the need to increase the rate of vaccination as much as possible, as Maharashtra is well below the national average in this regard.
“Though at present we are quite comfortable with around just 2,000 active cases, the situation may dramatically change over the next few weeks,” he said.
“Earlier, the increase in Covid cases was limited to south Asian countries but now cases are also increasing rapidly in China and Europe. Weekly new cases in the world are now more than 11 million with weekly growth of 8-10%,” Vyas said. Further, he said, in the past 24 hours, some countries had recorded higher than ever new cases since the pandemic began, two years ago.
“South Korea has reported 6.21 lakh new Covid cases in a day, Germany 2.62 lakh and UK 94,000 cases. Population of South Korea is about 5.18 crore and that of Germany 8.32 crore. Compared to that, in our state with a population of 12.2 crore, the highest daily new cases ever have been around 68,000 in a day in the second wave. This comparison is to show the extent of infection in South Korea and Europe,” said Vyas.
Now that practically all restrictions had been relaxed in Maharashtra, there was need for alertness at this point of time, Vyas cautioned.
On Friday, there were 171 new cases and three deaths in the state, with 1,680 active cases. The case fatality rate is 1.82 per cent while cumulative progressive cases are 78,72,203, the number of those discharged 77,22,754 and the number of deaths are 1,43,765.
Meanwhile, in the state assembly on Wednesday, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar had appealed to the public to take the pandemic seriously, saying that there should be collective efforts to prevent a fourth wave. The pace of vaccination should be increased further in the state, he had said. “Even though new cases are detected in various countries, everyone expects now that the fourth wave will not strike in Maharashtra but for that, necessary precautions should be taken by all. No one should take the coronavirus lightly,” he had said.
Meanwhile, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned that the fresh cases of COVID-19 are again spiking globally, especially in parts of Asia, after several weeks of decline and this rise is "just the tip of the iceberg".
Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned.
With each country facing a different situation with different challenges, Ghebreyesus cautioned that the pandemic is not over.
"We call on all countries to remain vigilant. Continue to vaccinate, test, sequence, provide early care for patients, and apply common-sense public health measures to protect health workers and the public," he said on Wednesday in Geneva.
"After several weeks of declines, reported cases of COVID-19 are once again increasing globally, especially in parts of Asia. These increases are occurring despite reductions in testing in some countries, which means the cases we are seeing are just the tip of the iceberg," Ghebreyesus said.
As of March 13, 2022, over 455 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and over 6 million related deaths have been reported globally. More than 10 billion vaccine doses have been administered.
The WHO chief said that when cases increase, so do deaths.
"Continued local outbreaks and surges are to be expected, particularly in areas where measures to prevent transmission have been lifted," he said, adding that there are unacceptably high levels of mortality in many countries, especially where vaccination levels are low among susceptible populations.
He also appealed that where vaccines are available, people should get vaccinated. "And we continue to work night and day to expand access to vaccines everywhere," he said.
The COVID-19 Weekly Epidemiological Update released this week said that after a consistent decrease in the number of new COVID-19 cases reported globally on a weekly basis since the end of January 2022, during the week of March 7 through 13, the number of new weekly cases increased by 8 per cent as compared to the previous week.
At the regional level, the Western Pacific Region, the African Region and the European Region reported an increase in new weekly cases of 29 per cent, 12 per cent and 2 per cent, respectively, as compared with the previous week; while a decrease has been reported by the Eastern Mediterranean Region (-24 per cent), the South-East Asia Region (-21 per cent) and the Region of the Americas (-20 per cent).
The number of new weekly deaths increased in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (38 per cent), the Western Pacific Region (27 per cent), the African Region (14 per cent) and the Region of the Americas (5 per cent), while it remained similar to that of the previous week in the European Region and decreased in the South-East Asia Region (9 per cent).
(With inputs from PTI)
