Covid surge: Nationwide drill in hospitals today, Maharashtra sees 45% rise in cases in 24 hours

Amid a spike in Covid cases in various parts of the country, a nationwide drill will be held at public and private hospitals across India on Monday and Tuesday (April 10-11). Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya will visit AIIMS, Jhajjar on April 10 to supervise the drill.

Also, Maharashtra saw a 45% increase in covid cases in a span of 24 hours on Sunday. The state reported 788 new cases of covid-19 and one death, significantly more than the 542 new cases reported Saturday, according to data from the state health department.

Here are key Covid-related updates:

• As part of the drill, state health ministers will be required to visit hospitals and supervise them. Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya also advised them to review the readiness with district administrations and health officials on April 8 and 9, a ITP report said.
• Mandaviya recently held a virtual meeting with state health ministers and principal and additional principal secretaries. He stressed the need to identify emergency hotspots by monitoring trends in influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) cases, increasing testing and vaccination, and ensuring preparedness of the hospital infrastructure.
• With the new case additions, the cumulative case count in Maharashtra rose to 81,49,929 and the number of deaths to 1,48,459. The city of Mumbai recorded 211 new cases on Sunday, making it the sixth day in a row that the city has recorded more than 200 infections.
• Omicron and its sublineages remain the predominant variants. However, most of the assigned variants have little or no significant transmissibility, disease severity, or immune escape, the Ministry of Health said in a statement.
• The national capital registered 699 new covid cases on Sunday with a positivity rate of 21.15 percent, according to data shared by the city government’s health department. Four people with the virus died in the city. With the new cases, Delhi’s Covid count rose to 20,14,637.
• Regardless of the new variants, the five-fold strategy of ‘Test-Track-Treat-Vaccinate and adhere to appropriate Covid behavior’ remains the proven strategy for Covid management, Mandaviya told the meeting.
• Previously, states and union territories were advised to increase RT-PCR testing participation and rapidly increase the testing rate to 100 tests per million starting the week ending April 7.

read all latest news from india here