New Delhi: Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh continue to report a surge in fresh COVID-19 cases and they account for 80.63 per cent of the daily new cases, the Union Health Ministry said on Friday.
“Some states in the country are reporting a surge in the daily new COVID-19 cases. Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh together account 80.63 per cent of the daily new cases,” according to a statement.
As many as 39,726 new daily cases were reported in last 24 hours. Maharashtra continues to record the highest daily new cases at 25,833, 65 per cent of the daily cases, followed by Punjab with 2,369 while Kerala reported 1,899 new cases.
In terms of response, the Centre is actively engaging with all state and Union Territories (UTs) governments, especially those showing an upsurge in daily new cases and with a high caseload of active cases. The government is regularly reviewing the status of COVID-19 containment and public health measures with them, as per the statement.
States/UTs have been advised to improve testing in districts reporting reduction in testing and increase the overall share of RT-PCR tests (more than 70 per cent), especially in districts dependent on high levels of antigen testing in line with the ‘Test Track and Treat’ strategy of the government.
The Ministry also advised states/UTs to carry out an average close contact tracing of minimum of 20 persons per positive case (in the first 72 hours) along with isolation and early treatment of the serious cases as per clinical protocol.
It is also advised to focus on surveillance and stringent containment of those areas in selected districts that are seeing cluster of cases and focus on clinical management in districts reporting higher deaths.
The Centre advised that the states and UTs should also follow up on sending samples for genome testing to track virus variants of concern.
