NEW DELHI: The Centre on Thursday expressed “very serious concern” over rapidly rising Covid-19 cases in Maharashtra as eight of the top 10 districts reporting most active cases are in the state and its active caseload has more than doubled in the last month.
The Centre also issued a caution for Delhi and its neighbourhood, saying there was a rise in positivity rate in the capital and NCR regions like Gurgaon and Faridabad as also Gautam Budh Nagar and Ghaziabad. On the positive side, the number of active cases in Kerala, a state which saw a worrying rise in cases, has been declining.
“We are very worried about Maharashtra, across several districts of Maharashtra. This is a serious matter,” Niti Aayog member (health) Dr V K Paul said. Other top officials, ICMR chief Dr Balram Bhargava and health secretary Rajesh Bhushan, said the Maharashtra situation was linked to inadequate testing and contact tracing, lax Covid-appropriate behaviour and large gatherings.
Maharashtra’s active cases increased to 1,00,240 on March 11 from 36,917 on February 11. Active cases have also significantly increased in Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, Bhushan said.
The 10 districts with the highest active caseload include Pune, Nagpur, Thane, Mumbai, Amravati, Jalgaon, Nashik and Aurangabad in Maharashtra. Apart from these, Bengaluru Urban in Karnataka and Ernakulum in Kerala are on the list.
“This has two lessons — don’t take the virus for granted. It can come up unexpectedly… We need to follow Covid-appropriate behaviour, containment strategy, readiness of health facilities as well as vaccination has to be brought in to phase out the pandemic,” Paul said.
The government asked states to be vigilant with effective testing and containment measures, whereas districts with a high caseload or those seeing a rapid surge in Covid-19 cases have been advised to step up vaccination to achieve the maximum coverage of priority population groups.
Dr Bhargava, while ruling out the role of the mutant virus in the surge, underlined slackness on part of the administration and people.
“Maharashtra has shown a worrisome trend. The mutant strain has not been found incriminating in this surge. It is just related to reduced testing, tracking and tracing and Covid-inappropriate behaviour and large congregations,” Dr Bhargava said.
However, Kerala — which accounts for the second largest Covid-19 caseload after Maharashtra — is actually witnessing a decline. Active cases in the southern state have almost halved in the last one month from 64,607 in February 11 to 35,715 on March 11.