NEW DELHI: As daily new cases rose to a two-month high of 47,092 on Thursday with Kerala alone accounting for 69 per cent of new cases last week, the government warned people against mass festive gatherings saying the second wave of the pandemic was not yet over.
Indian Council of Medical Research chief Balram Bhargava went to the extent of saying that while mass gatherings need to be absolutely avoided at the moment, only fully inoculated people must gather if meeting is critical.
“Mass gatherings must be discouraged. Full vaccination should be a must if holding a gathering of necessary,” Bhargava said, with the Member Health NITI Aayog VK Paul asking people to celebrate upcoming festivals with families only.
Describing the threat of mutants (WHO classified a new variant of interest Mu on Wednesday) as real, Paul said mutations can devastate health systems leading to loss of current gains.
“There is no systematic strategy to deal with this expect protections of behaviour and through vaccination,” the expert said.
The government, meanwhile, informed that it has expanded the basket of nations for stringent Covid controls on international travellers arriving here.
So far passengers travelling from the UK, EU and the Middle East were required to have an RTPCR negative report before taking a flight and then get a mandatory RTPCR test upon arrival in India.
“In the light of risk of mutations, we have added to the list of UK, EU and Middle East more countries including South Africa, Bangladesh, Botswana, China, Mauritius, New Zealand and Zimbabwe. International travellers from all these countries would now need RTPCR negative reports to get on flights to India and RTPCR testing upon arrival here,” Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said.
The government said 39 districts (in Kerala and Northeast) had over 10 per cent Covid positivity as of today and 38 had positivity rate of 5 to 10 per cent.
“Districts with over ten pc positivity need urgent containment measures. In districts with 5 to 10 per cent positivity, states must ensure surveillance,” the Health Secretary said.
The government also hailed Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Dadra and Nagar Haveli for covering full adult population with the first dose.
Himachal has given the second dose to 32 pc adults, Sikkim to 36 per cent.
Overall, 54 per cent of India’s 94 crore adults have received the first dose as of today and 16 per cent has received both doses.
Government said vaccine pace was picking up with 80.27 lakh plus doses administered on the last seven days of August.
Overall in August India administered 18.38 crore doses with cumulative doses now reaching over 64 crore which is more than the population of many nations.