Covid Surge: Nationwide Drill in Hospitals Today, Maharashtra Sees 45% Case Rise in 24 Hours

A nationwide exercise will take place in both public and private hospitals across India on Monday and Tuesday (April 10 and 11), amid a spurt in Covid cases in several parts of the country. Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya will inspect the mock drill at AIIMS, Jhajjar on 10th April.

Also, Maharashtra saw a 45% spike in Covid cases in a span of 24 hours on Sunday. According to the state health department data, 788 new cases of COVID-19 and one death were reported in the state, which is much higher than the 542 new cases reported on Saturday.

Here are the key Covid-related updates:

• As part of the mock drill, state health ministers will be required to visit and supervise hospitals. Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya also advised him to review preparedness with the district administration and health officials on April 8 and 9. PTI said the report.
• Mandaviya recently held a virtual meeting with state health ministers, and principal and additional chief secretaries. He stressed the need to identify emergency hotspots by expediting surveillance, testing and vaccination of cases of influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) and ensuring the readiness of hospital infrastructure .
• With the rise in new cases, the cumulative number of cases in Maharashtra has risen to 81,49,929 and the death toll to 1,48,459. The city of Mumbai reported 211 new cases on Sunday, the sixth day in a row that the city saw more than 200 infections.
• Omicron and its sub-lineages remain the dominant form. However, most of the assigned variants have little or no significant transmissibility, disease severity or immune defence, the health ministry said in a statement.
• The national capital recorded 699 new Covid cases on Sunday with a positivity rate of 21.15 per cent, according to data shared by the city government’s health department. Four people infected with the virus have died in the city. With the fresh cases, Delhi’s Covid tally rises to 20,14,637.
• Mandaviya had said in the meeting that despite the new variants, the five-fold strategy of ‘test-track-treat-vaccinate and follow Covid-appropriate behaviour’ remains the time-tested strategy for Covid management.
• Earlier, States and Union Territories were advised to increase the share of RT-PCR in tests and to rapidly increase the rate of testing to 100 tests per million by the week ending April 7.

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