New Delhi: The central government on Thursday wrote to eight states and union territories (UTs) on the increase in the number of new Kovid cases. Letters have been sent to the states reporting an increasing number of COVID and omicron cases.
Letters have been written to the health secretaries of Haryana, Delhi, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan directed the states to take steps as the cases of COVID have increased and the doubling time is getting shorter.
The states concerned have been asked to increase testing, increase hospital level preparedness, speed up and increase the coverage of the vaccination campaign.
The Center has also directed these states to increase the testing in a focused manner while maintaining the ratio between RT-PCR and rapid antigen test. These states have also been advised to go for active contact tracing, and isolation and quarantine of contacts of positive cases, their testing and follow-up.
States have also been asked to expedite COVID vaccination coverage along with implementing appropriate COVID treatment.
Meanwhile, the country recorded 13,154 new Covid cases and 268 deaths in a 24-hour period on Thursday. With the new deaths, the death toll has risen to 4,80,860.
The number of omicron cases has also reached 961 across the country. However, 320 of Omicron’s total cases have been discharged from hospitals.
So far 22 states have given reports omicron cases, according to data from the Union Health Ministry.
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