World is witnessing fourth surge of Covid-19, India must be on guard: Centre
Jasleen Kaur
December 24th 2021 05:44 PM --
Updated:
December 24th 2021 05:53 PM
New Delhi: The world is witnessing the fourth surge of Covid-19 pandemic and India has to be on guard and cannot afford to slacken, especially amid the Omicron scare, said Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan on Friday.
Addressing a weekly press briefing, the Union Health Secretary issued a fresh warning against the Covid-19 pandemic in the wake of the rise in Omicron cases and said, "The world is witnessing the fourth surge and the overall positivity is 6.1 per cent. Therefore, we have to be on guard and can't afford to slacken."
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Also read | Delhi ready to handle 1 lakh Covid-19 cases daily: CM Kejriwal amid Omicron scare
He said as compared to Europe, North America and Africa were seeing an increase in Covid-19 cases week-on-week. Asia was witnessing a decline in the number of fresh cases, but they had to be on guard.
"The top five states with the highest number of Covid-19 active cases, at the moment, are Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Karnataka," said Rajesh Bhushan.
Further speaking on the rise in Omicron cases, he said the country had so far reported 358 Omicron cases in 17 states and UTs while 114 persons had recovered from the new variant of Covid.
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He said 89 per cent of the adult population had received the first dose and 61 per cent of the eligible population had received the second dose of Covid-19 vaccines.
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He said the Health Ministry advised the states on December 21 to impose restrictions such as night curfew and regulate large gatherings. "The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare preemptively advised states on December 21 to impose restrictions such as night curfew, regulating large gatherings, increase bed capacity and other logistics and strict enforcement of Covid-appropriate behaviour," said Union Health Secretary.
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Bhushan said as of now, there were 18,10,083 isolation beds, 4,94,314 O2 supported beds, 1,39,300 ICU beds, 24,057 paediatric ICU beds and 64,796 paediatric non-ICU beds.
-PTC News
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Also read | Delhi ready to handle 1 lakh Covid-19 cases daily: CM Kejriwal amid Omicron scare
He said as compared to Europe, North America and Africa were seeing an increase in Covid-19 cases week-on-week. Asia was witnessing a decline in the number of fresh cases, but they had to be on guard.
"The top five states with the highest number of Covid-19 active cases, at the moment, are Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Karnataka," said Rajesh Bhushan.
Further speaking on the rise in Omicron cases, he said the country had so far reported 358 Omicron cases in 17 states and UTs while 114 persons had recovered from the new variant of Covid.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter"] Social media[/caption]
He said 89 per cent of the adult population had received the first dose and 61 per cent of the eligible population had received the second dose of Covid-19 vaccines.
Also read | Punjab CM Channi announces Rs 1,200 cr debt waiver for loans up to Rs 2 lakh
He said the Health Ministry advised the states on December 21 to impose restrictions such as night curfew and regulate large gatherings. "The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare preemptively advised states on December 21 to impose restrictions such as night curfew, regulating large gatherings, increase bed capacity and other logistics and strict enforcement of Covid-appropriate behaviour," said Union Health Secretary.
[caption id="" align="alignnone"] Social media[/caption]
Bhushan said as of now, there were 18,10,083 isolation beds, 4,94,314 O2 supported beds, 1,39,300 ICU beds, 24,057 paediatric ICU beds and 64,796 paediatric non-ICU beds.
-PTC News