By Express News Service
NEW DELHI: The daily fresh Covid case count in the country shot past the 2-lakh mark on Thursday morning for the first time, amid reports of acute oxygen scarcity from various states. To get a sense of the unprecedented public health emergency staring India in the face, the country took just 10 days to double its active cases from 1 lakh to 2 lakh, while the US had taken more than 20 days in doubling to 2 lakh. And daily fatalities have crossed 1,000 since the past two days.
Many experts fear the current trend may push daily infections up for many days to come and the country may even surpass the highest daily infections of over 3 lakh registered in the US in early January. Amid all the anxiety about the ongoing Maha Kumbh in Uttarakhand becoming a super spreader, there was some self-regulation as the Shri Panchayati Niranjani Akhada, one of the 13 participating akhadas, announced the conclusion of the mega event on April 17 instead of the scheduled May 8.
A final call will be taken by the apex body of 13 akhadas, the Akhada Parishad. As many as 2,269 Covid positive cases have been detected so far in the mela area. The figure includes 18 seers/saints from different akhadas. Also, one saint succumbed to Covid on April 13. With Delhi overtaking Mumbai’s single-day peak (11,163 on April 4) by recording over 17,000 fresh cases, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal announced a weekend curfew and the closure of malls, gymnasiums and auditoriums till April 30.
Maharashtra stayed on top of the Covid chart with 61,695 fresh cases and 349 fatalities. As many as 36 lakh patients in the state are on home quarantine while 27,273 are under institutional quarantine. With Uttar Pradesh recording 22,439 new cases and staying at second highest on the national list, the government decided to incremnetally increase the time of night curfew across the state.
With the demand for medical oxygen shooting in states like Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, the Centre decided to import 50,000 metric tonnes of medical oxygen as also mapping its domestic sources and production capacity. In Gujarat, a high court bench saw a mismatch between the case data presented by the state government and the actual positive cases, and chided it for not being proactive.
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