Amid surge, Centre closely monitoring COVID situation in Maharashtra, Kerala, other states

New Delhi: After a surge in COVID cases across the country, Union Health Ministry is closely monitoring the situation in the states like Maharashtra, Kerala, Delhi and Karnataka and has asked them to follow the five-fold strategy and amp-up testing, said official sources on Thursday.

The Ministry has also asked the States to monitor clusters of new COVID cases and follow COVID appropriate behaviour, sources told ANI.

Recently, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan wrote to the officials of five states, Kerala, Karanataka, Maharashtra, Telangana and Tamil Nadu to closely monitor emerging clusters, maintain adequate number of testing and send samples from infected individuals for genome sequencing.

"There are few states which are reporting a higher contribution to India's cases indicating the possibility of a localised spread of infection. There is, therefore, a need to follow a risk assessment based approach on the public health responses without losing the gains made so far in the fight against the pandemic, " reads the letter.
India on Thursday witnessed another jump in the daily COVID cases as the country reported 7,240 infections in the last 24 hours, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

On Wednesday, India saw a rise of nearly 41 per cent in the daily COVID cases, as the country logged 5,233 infections.

This increase is believed to be led by another surge in COVID cases in Maharashtra. The state reported 2,701 new coronavirus cases last evening.

With this surge in COVID cases, the active caseload in the country stands at 32,498, constituting 0.08 per cent of India's total positive cases.

The daily positivity rate was observed to be 1.31 per cent in the last 24 hours, while the weekly positivity rate was recorded to be 2.13, the Health Ministry informed. The last 24 hours also saw 3,591 recoveries, taking the total recoveries to 4,26,40,301. India's Recovery Rate is currently at 98.71 per cent.

India conducted 3,40,615 COVID-19 tests in the last 24 hours. The country has so far conducted 85.38 crore (85,38,63,238) total tests so far, as per the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) data.

Maharashtra logged 2,701 new COVID cases on Wednesday, the highest in nearly four months. Of the total, 1,765 cases were reported from Mumbai. Further, Karnataka on Wednesday recorded 376 new COVID cases of which 358 patients were from Bengaluru. Delhi reported a fresh surge in COVID cases as the city logged 450 cases on Wednesday, the Delhi Health Department informed. The city also saw one death due to COVID on Wednesday.

Kerala recorded 2,271 new COVID cases and six deaths on Tuesday. (ANI)