Cautioning that in India a few States currently account for more than 80% of the daily active new COVID cases, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Monday said, “Negligence towards COVID appropriate behaviour is the main reason behind the rising cases. It is important to ascertain that COVID appropriate behaviour is followed even after the vaccine is available.”
He added that “we have to make COVID vaccination programme a ‘Jan Andolan’ by increasing awareness about the COVID appropriate behaviours and also about COVID vaccination”.
The Minister was speaking at the inauguration of the sixth mega-health camp in Parliament House Annexe for super-specialist consultations for parliamentarians.
India, meanwhile, continued to register a rise in the number of cases with 26,291 fresh cases in the past 24 hours along with 17,455 recoveries and 118 deaths, according to data released by the Health Ministry.
Overall the country has registered a total of 1,13,85,339 cases, 1,10,07,352 recoveries, and has 2,19,262 active cases with a total death toll of 1,58,725. While the number of COVID cases has shown a consistent declining trend over the last one month, Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, Karnataka and Haryana have registered a rising trend.
“Five States of Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu cumulatively account for 78.41% of the new cases reported in the past 24 hours with Maharashtra reporting the highest daily new cases at 16,620 (accounting for 63.21% of the daily new cases). It is followed by Kerala with 1,792 while Punjab reported 1,492 new cases,” said the release.
It added that three States — Maharashtra, Kerala and Punjab — cumulatively account for 77% of India’s total active cases and Maharashtra alone accounts for more than 58% of the total active cases in the country. The State also accounts for the maximum number of single day recoveries at 8,861.
“Six States account for 82.20% of the new COVID deaths and Maharashtra saw the maximum casualties (50), Punjab followed with 20 daily deaths and Kerala reported 15 deaths in the last 24 hours. Sixteen States/UTs — Assam, Chandigarh, J&K (UT), Odisha, Jharkhand, Lakshadweep, Sikkim, Ladakh (UT) — have not reported any COVID-19 deaths in the last 24 hours,” added the Ministry.
