Centre rushes High Level Public Health teams to Maharashtra and Punjab to assist in COVID-19

New Delhi, March 06, 2021 :

The Central Government has rushed high level multi-disciplinary public health teams to Maharashtra and Punjab in view of the increase in number of daily new COVID-19 cases being consistently reported by these States. They are being deployed to assist the State Health Departments in COVID-19 surveillance, control and containment measures.

The high level team to Maharashtra will be led by Dr. P Ravindran, Sr. CMO, Disaster Management Cell, MOHFW. While the public health team to Punjab will be led by Dr. S K Singh, Director, National Center for Disease Control (NCDC), New Delhi.

The teams visit the States immediately and will visit the hotspot areas in the States and ascertain reasons for the surge. They will also brief the Chief Secretary/Secretary (H) on their observations and remedial measures to be undertaken by the State Health authorities.

The Union Government has been leading the fight against the Covid pandemic with a ‘Whole of Government’ and ‘Whole of Society’ approach under the umbrella strategy of ‘Cooperative Federalism’. As an ongoing effort to strengthen efforts of various State/UT Governments for COVID management, the Central Government has been deputing Central teams from time to time to visit various States/UTs. These teams interact with the State/UT authorities and get a first hand understanding of the challenges and issues being faced by them so as to strengthen their ongoing activities and remove bottlenecks, if any. The reports of Central Teams are shared with the states for further follow up action. The follow up and compliance on part of states is monitored by the Union Ministry of Health.

Maharashtra, Kerala, Punjab, Karnataka and  Tamil Nadu have reported a high number of COVID daily new cases. They cumulatively account for 82% of the new cases reported in the past 24 hours.

18,327 new cases were registered in the last 24 hours.

Maharashtra has reported the highest daily new cases at 10,216. It is followed by Kerala with 2,776 while Punjab reported 808 new cases.

Eight states are displaying an upward trajectory in daily new cases.

India’s total Active Caseload has reached 1,80,304 today. India’s present active caseload now stands at 1.61% of India’s total Positive Cases.

On the other hand, 21 States/UTs have less than 1,000 active cases. Arunachal Pradesh has reported only 3 active cases.

The graph below shows the change in active cases for States/UTs in the last 24 hours. Kerala, Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu show a reduction in the active cases in the last 24 hours. On the other hand, Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Haryana display a rise in the active cases during the same time period.

The 2nd dose of COVID19 vaccination started on 13^th February, 2021 for those beneficiaries who have completed 28 days after receipt of the 1st dose. Vaccination of the FLWs started on 2^nd Feb 2021.

The next phase of Covid-19 vaccination commenced from 1^st March, 2021 for those who are over 60 years of age and for people aged 45 and above with specified co-morbid conditions.

More than 1.94 cr (1,94,97,704) vaccine doses have been administered through 3,57,478 sessions, as per the provisional report till 7 am today. These include 69,15,661 HCWs (1st dose), 33,56,830 HCWs (2nd dose), 63,55,989 FLWs (1^st dose) and 1,44,191 FLWs (2^nd Dose), 3,46,758 beneficiaries aged more than 45 years with specific co-morbidities (1^st Dose) and 23,78,275 beneficiaries aged more than 60 years.

As on Day-49 of the vaccination drive (5^th March, 2021), total 14,92,201 vaccine doses were given. Out of which, 11,99,848 beneficiaries were vaccinated across 18,333 sessions for 1^st dose (HCWs and FLWs) and 2,92,353 HCWs and FLWs received 2^nd dose of vaccine.

108 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours.

Six States account for 85.2%of the new deaths. Maharashtra saw the maximum casualties (53). Kerala follows with 16 daily deaths andPunjab reported11 deaths in the last 24 hours.

Eighteen States/UTs have not reported any COVID19 deaths in the last 24 hours. These are Gujarat, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Uttarakhand, Lakshadweep, Puducherry, Assam, Sikkim, Manipur, Ladakh (UT), Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Nagaland, Mizoram, A&N Islands and D&D & D&N.

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