Increase testing, PM tells CMs Of 8 States at review meet

During a review meeting on coronavirus situaton with the chief ministers of states and UTs, prime minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday asked them to start working on cold storage facilities for coronavirus vaccine. He assured the states that the vaccine against Covid-19 which Indian will get for its citizens, will be safe on “all scientific standards”. “Safety is as important as speed for us, whichever vaccine India will give to its citizens will be safe on all scientific standards.“Seeing good recovery rates, many think virus is weak & they’ll recover soon, this has led to rampant carelessness... Those working on vaccine are doing it but we need to focus on ensuring that people are alert & transmission is curbed. We’ve to bring positivity rate under 5%,” the prime minister added.

In the meeting, home minister Amit Shah asked chief ministers of all the states and Union Territories witnessing a surge in the cases of the coronavirus disease to ensure Covid-19 mortality rate comes down below 1% and the and the new cases must not exceed 5% of the existing level.  The most important step Shah told the CMs to make the containment zones dynamic. Officials must visit the red zones every week and based on data collected, change the status of a particular area, he said. At present, the data from containment zones is collected fortnightly. The Union home minister asked the chief ministers to do everything in their power to ensure all the three targets are achieved at the earliest.

Chief Ministers of eight worst Covid-hit states -- Maharashtra, Kerala, Delhi, Bengal, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh -- had attended Tuesday meeting. After the meeting the Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani said in Gandhinagar that the PM made it clear that in the first stage the vaccine will be given to the frontline health workers, in the second stage to the police personnel, sanitation workers etc, to those above 50 years of age in third stage and to those with co-morbid conditions in the fourth stage. 

In the meeting Dehi CM Arvind Kejariwal told the PM that pollution caused by stubble burning in the neighbouring states played a key role in the high severity of the third wave of Covid-19 in the national capital. Delhi saw a peak of 8,600 Covid-19 cases on November 10 in the third peak following which the cases and positivity rate are steadily decreasing. West Bengal, chief minister Mamata Banerjee said that situation in West Bengal is under control and the state is tackling the pandemic situation well. Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday said the state has formed a task force to ensure distribution of coronavirus vaccine and to execute the vaccination programme.