Effects of festivals and elections on Covid outbreak may be visible soon

The Union health ministry on Tuesday said that Centre is taking urgent actions to control Covid-19 outbreak in Delhi by taking number of measures like increasing overall beds including ICU beds, double testing to 1-1.2 lakh per day, enforce quarantine of contacts, enforce containment zone SOPs among others. Manpower in the national capital will be increased to inspect nearly 4,000 containment areas in Delhi following the government-induced Standard Operating Procedures.

Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said effects of elections, Durga Puja, Diwali may be seen in coming weeks. “We have to keep watching new cases very carefully,"  Since October number of cases are at a record high. Fewer cases have been detected in the last 48 hours but we can’t come to a conclusion now, said Bhushan.

India on Tuesday logged 29,163 fresh infection of Covid-19, pushing the cumulative tally to 88,74,290. The death toll rose to 1,30,519 after 449 new casualties were recorded in the last 24 hours. India’s number of new coronavirus infections reported in a day dropped below 30,000 after four months. The last time India reported less than 30,000 Covid-19 cases was on July 15.