Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday expressed concern over a rise in Covid-19 cases in parts of the country and called for "quick and decisive" steps to check the "emerging second peak".
In a virtual interaction with state chief ministers over the pandemic situation and the ongoing vaccination drive, Modi said in states like Maharashtra, Punjab and Madhya Pradesh the number of Covid cases has seen a rise while nearly 70 districts in the country have have seen an increase in the positivity rate by over 150 per cent of late.
"If we do not stop it here, then a condition for a nationwide outbreak may emerge," he said and called for quick and decisive steps to stop it.
The confidence brought by India's fight against the pandemic so far should not cause carelessness, he said, and asked chief ministers to take measures, including more testing, enforcement of preventive measures as well as increase in the number of vaccination centres to curb the virus.
People should not be put on panic-mode but need to ensure that they get rid of this problem as well, he said.
"Test, track and treat" should be taken as seriously now as it has been for over a year since the outbreak, he added.
The Prime Minister reiterated that RT-PCR tests should make up for over 70 per cent of overall Coronavirus testing, while noting that states like Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala and Odisha have been mostly dependent on antigen tests.
Modi also spoke against wastage of vaccines and called for more vaccination centres.
India has put up a strong fight against the Coronavirus so far, and it is being cited as an example in the world, he said, asserting that the country's recovery rate is over 96 per cent and fatality rate among the lowest.
Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her Chhattisgarh counterpart Bhupesh Baghel skipped Wednesday’s meeting.
India on Wednesday recorded 28,903 new Covid-19 cases, the highest one-day spike so far this year, taking the Covid-19 tally to 1,14,38,734.
As many as 30,254 new infections were recorded in a span of 24 hours on December 13.
Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu continue to report a high number of daily Covid-19 cases, accounting for 71.10 per cent of the 28,903 new infections, the Union Health Ministry said on Wednesday.
It said 83.91 per cent of the new cases are from Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
Maharashtra alone accounts for 61.8 per cent of the daily new cases with 17,864 cases. It is followed by Kerala with 1,970 while Punjab reported 1,463 new cases, the ministry said.
Kerala is reporting a consistently declining trend over the last one month.
According to health ministry figures, the average number of Covid cases is at an 81-day high.
A central eam report on Tuesday said that Maharashtra is on the brink of experiencing a second wave of the infection, highlighting that there is very limited active effort to track, test, isolate cases and quarantine contacts, and there is no adherence to Covid appropriate behaviour among people in rural and urban areas.
