- Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked people to start wearing masks again.
- The prime minister asked for more testing.
- The country had two deadly waves in 2020 and 2022.
As India increases its surveillance of Covid cases, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked people to start wearing masks again.
On Thursday, Mr. Modi held a review meeting because of a rise in cases in China that has put India on high alert.
The prime minister asked for more testing and urged people to act like they should in Covid.
India changed its rules about Covid, like wearing masks, earlier this year because the number of infections had gone down.
The country had two deadly waves in 2020 and 2022. The government was heavily criticised for how it dealt with the second wave in the summer of 2021, when thousands of people died because there wasn’t enough oxygen or important medicines.
At the meeting on Thursday, Mr. Modi asked states to make sure that hospital infrastructure is ready to go, including having enough oxygen tanks and ventilators.
Even though there was no reason to panic, the prime minister warned against getting too comfortable and asked people to take all the precautions they could.
According to government data, there are only about 3,400 active coronavirus cases in India right now. However, news about the rise in cases in China has made many people afraid.
In the past few months, BF.7, an Omicron subvariant that has been linked to a rise in cases in China, has been blamed for four Covid-19 cases in India.
Three of the cases were found in the state of Gujarat and one was found in the state of Odisha. The cases were found in July, September, and November, and health officials say the patients have recovered.
Experts have told India that it doesn’t need to worry.
Arvind Kejriwal, who is the Chief Minister of Delhi, has told the people that there have been no cases of the Covid variant in the national capital.
In Karnataka, a state in the south, the government has made Covid tests required for people with flu-like symptoms and said masks may soon be required in closed spaces.
People have been asked by top health officials to get vaccinated and get booster shots. So far, more than 2.2 billion doses of the Covid vaccine have been given, but only 27% of the population has taken the booster dose, which India calls a “precaution dose.”
The government said that there were no plans to stop flights from countries where new cases were found. But the country has started testing international travellers at airports on a random basis again.
India’s health minister, Mansukh Mandaviya, told parliament on Thursday that the number of cases in China was going up, but that the number of cases in India was going down. He also said that the ministry was keeping a close eye on new variations and that states should do more genome sequencing.
On Twitter, the government also said that a fake WhatsApp message about a subvariant of the Omicron strain was not true.
This message is circulating in some Whatsapp groups regarding XBB variant of #COVID19.
The message is #FAKE and #MISLEADING. pic.twitter.com/LAgnaZjCCi
— Ministry of Health (@MoHFW_INDIA) December 22, 2022
This week, the federal government asked states to send samples of all Covid-positive patients to labs run by an Indian health ministry forum that keeps an eye on different strains of Covid.
During the coming holiday season, Mr. Mandaviya also asked states to encourage people to follow rules about social distance and other things. Several state leaders have been looking at how ready they are to deal with infections if they happen.
[embedpost slug=”india-reached-2-billion-covid-immunizations-while-new-cases-are-at-a-four-month-high/”]
