Meeting Chief Ministers amid growing alarm over the resurgence of COVID-19, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday urged them to act fast against the emerging “second peak” of the pandemic, warning “if we do not stop this now, a country-wide outbreak can occur”.
He called for taking quick and decisive steps to stop this “second peak” of the COVID-19 virus, in the meeting held via video conference.
Stressing the importance of solving problems of local governance, he warned that the confidence which came from the achievements in the battle against COVID-19 should not turn into negligence as he expressed concern about the high positivity rate in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh with 70 districts witnessing a 150 per cent rise in the last few weeks.
“Stop this emerging second peak of Corona immediately,” he urged the Chief Ministers.
At the same time, Modi stressed that the public should not be brought to panic mode.
The Prime Minister noted the need for the provision of micro containment zones and to be serious about ‘Test, Track and Treat’ as “we have been doing for the last one year”.
“It is very important to track every infected person’s contacts in the shortest time and keep the RT-PCR test rate above 70 per cent. More RT-PCR tests should be done in the states like Kerala, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, and Uttar Pradesh, which give more emphasis to Rapid Antigen Tests,” he said.
The Prime Minister urged to increase testing and to pay special attention to the “referral system” and “ambulance network” in small cities.
“This is because now the whole country has opened up for travel and the number of people travelling has also increased. There is a need for a new mechanism for sharing information among people,” he said, focusing on the responsibility of following SOPs for surveillance of the contacts of the travellers coming from abroad.
Surjitt Sahani
