India tells states to get a grip on Covid-19 surge

AMID a surge in Covid-19 cases, India has asked its 28 federal states on Tuesday (30) to get a grip on the prevalent situation "right now" to prevent healthcare systems being overwhelmed.

The daily caseload has increased for India being now placed third behind the United States and Brazil, with over 12.1 million cases.

"The current rise in cases ... has the potential of overwhelming healthcare systems unless checked right now," health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said in a letter to the states.

"Many districts in the country are seeing clusters of cases emerging because of specific events and/or places where crowding happens, or where a large number of people are in close contact coupled with a lack of a Covid-appropriate behaviour."

The health secretary also asked the states to enforce wearing of mask and physical distancing strictly, and increase testing, tracing and quarantining, or else face "heavy costs".

On Monday (29), there were 800,000 tests carried out, compared with more than one million in September during the outbreak.

Vinod Kumar Paul, a senior government health official, said the Covid-19 situation in the country was going "from bad to worse".

Maharashtra, which is contributing the most number of cases, is considering imposing restrictions from April 1.

India is looking to ramp up its immunisation programme starting Thursday (1), which will see adults over-45 taking the shot.