India reports over 1.25 lakh new Covid-19 cases; Centre, states spar over vaccine shortage | 10 points
With over 1.25 lakh new Covid-19 cases on Wednesday, India recorded its highest single-day spike since the beginning of the pandemic last year. Maharashtra alone reported nearly 60,000 cases.
At least four states are staring at a coronavirus vaccine shortage even as the daily Covid-19 case count breached the 1.25 lakh-mark for the first time since the pandemic began last year.
Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh have formally informed the Centre about their fast depleting stock of Covid-19 vaccines, while Chhattisgarh and Odisha said they too were facing a similar shortage.
The Centre meanwhile claimed there was no shortage of Covid-19 vaccines in the country and that states will be provided with adequate stock as per their need. Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan also slammed the states and asked them to first "put their house in order".
Besides this, the government has decided to allow all workplaces, public and private, to organise Covid-19 vaccination sessions if they have about 100 eligible beneficiaries. The Centre has asked states and Union Territories (UTs) to prepare themselves for this launch by April 11.
#Maharashtra Health Minister @rajeshtope11 speaks to @sardesairajdeep on Maharashtra's #Covid-19 crisis and steps taken to curb it, says there is no shortage of beds in hospitals. Watch #6PMPrime with @Ankit_Tyagi pic.twitter.com/xZR13EJWqI — IndiaToday (@IndiaToday) April 7, 2021
India's Covid-19 curve has seen a steady increase since mid-February and the active cases have increased to close to 8.5 lakh comprising about 6.59 per cent of the total infections. According to the Centre, the country's recovery rate has further dropped to 92.11 per cent.
The active caseload was at its lowest at 1, 35,926 on February 12 comprising 1.25 percent of the total infections.
Eight states including Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala have shown a rise in the Covid-19 daily new cases accounting for 80.70 per cent of the new cases reported in a day.
Here are 10 things you should know about the pandemic today:
1) The daily Covid-19 count in India breached the 1.25 lakh-mark on Wednesday, with Maharashtra alone reporting 59,907 new cases. This is by far the highest daily case count for India ever since the pandemic began last year.
According to a tally maintained by IndiaToday.in, besides Maharashtra:
- Chhattisgarh reported 10,310 cases
- Karnataka 6,976 cases
- Uttar Pradesh 6,023 cases
- Delhi 5,506 cases
- Madhya Pradesh 4,043 cases
- Gujarat 3,575 cases
- Kerala 3,502 cases
- Tamil Nadu 3,986 cases
- Punjab 2,997 cases
- Rajasthan 2,801 cases
- West Bengal 2,390 cases
- Haryana 2,366 cases
- Andhra Pradesh 2,331 cases
- Telangana 1,914 cases
- Bihar 1,527 cases
- Jharkhand 1,312 cases
- Uttarakhand 1,109 cases
- J&K 812 cases
- Odisha 791 cases
- Goa 527 cases
- Chandigarh 399 cases
- Assam 195 cases.
The cumulative figure for these states is 1,25,299. However, the overall national figure for Wednesday would be still higher as numbers for some states are unknown.
2) Meanwhile, Maharashtra health minister Rajesh Tope on Wednesday said the state's Covid-19 vaccine stock will not last more than three days. Urging the Centre to provide additional doses of Covid-19 vaccines, he said the state government has been forced to close several vaccination centres due to the shortage.
"We need 40 lakh vaccine doses every week. We can then administer six lakh doses every day in a week. The doses we are getting are not enough," he said, adding the Centre should ensure that those in the 20-40 age group are vaccinated on priority.
3) Andhra Pradesh too reported a shortage of Covid-19 vaccines and wrote to the Centre urging additional supplies. The Odisha government said it has vaccines for another three days and that it had written to the central government on Tuesday urging it to provide 15 to 20 lakh doses of the 'Covishield' vaccine to continue the inoculation drive smoothly.
4) Responding to this, Union health minister Harsh Vardhan rejected the allegations of vaccine shortage and termed them "utterly baseless". He said states would be provided with adequate supply as per their needs. He added that states need to improve the implementation of their testing and containment strategies and vaccination drive.
5) Hitting out at the Maharashtra government in particular, he said its "lackadaisical" attitude has "singularly bogged down" the entire country's efforts to fight the virus.
6) On the recurring demands from states to lower age limit for vaccination so that more people could be covered, Harsh Vardhan alleged that states were trying to cover their "failures" and spread panic among the people by demanding vaccination for all without first inoculating enough of the eligible beneficiaries.
Chief ministers of Delhi, Rajasthan, Punjab and Maharashtra have been demanding the Centre to lower age limits and allow vaccination for all. On Wednesday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also supported this demand, saying every Indian "deserves the chance to a safe life".
7) The Centre has allowed all workplaces, public and private, to organise vaccination sessions at their premises to inoculate their staff. However, this will be allowed for only those workplaces that have about 100 eligible and willing beneficiaries. In a letter, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan asked states and UTs to get prepared for this launch by April 11.
8) Meanwhile, night curfews and restrictions were imposed in more parts of the country on Wednesday. Chhattisgarh, which has emerged as a hotspot, ordered complete lockdown in the state capital Raipur from April 9 to 19.
Odisha too has imposed night curfew from 10 pm to 5 am in Sundargarh, Bargarh, Jharsuguda, Sambalpur, Balangir, Nuapada, Kalahandi, Malkangiri, Koraput and Nabarangpur districts to contain the spread of the disease.
Do night curfews and weekend lockdowns work? Dr. Rahul Pandit, member of the Maharashtra Covid Task Force responds#NewsToday #CoronavirusPandemic #COVID19 | @sardesairajdeep pic.twitter.com/FpsvhRmVQT — IndiaToday (@IndiaToday) April 7, 2021
9) In Madhya Pradesh, the government has imposed night curfew and lockdown on Sunday in urban areas from Thursday, besides suspending bus operations with Chhattisgarh till April 15. Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh also announced extension of night curfew to the entire state and a ban on political gatherings till April 30.
10) Meanwhile, the Bombay High Court on Wednesday sought response of the Centre on a petition requesting that door-to-door vaccination facility be made available for citizens above 75 years and also for those people who cannot visit vaccination centres because they are either bed-ridden or wheelchair-bound.
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