Due to the rising COVID-19 cases in Delhi, the State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA) held a meeting on Monday, 22 March with the Lieutenant Governor, Chief Minister, Health Minister, Chief Secretary and other senior officials, to formulate strategies to fight the virus.
In the meeting , Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal stressed upon the need for more caution and regulation in view of the upcoming festivals. He added that random testing at airport and railway stations needed to be done, particularly of passengers coming from states with high incidences of COVID cases.
It was also decided to continue with the existing strategy of cluster-based surveillance, testing and genome sequencing.
COVID Surge in Maharashtra and Delhi
India has been witnessing a sharp rise in COVID cases since the beginning of March. On Sunday, 21 March, India registered a little more than 47,000 cases, taking the total number of cases to 115,99,130 as reported by the Union Health Ministry. Maharashtra on Sunday reported 30,535 new COVID cases, the sharpest rise in a single day.
Delhi too, has been witnessing a surge in its COVID cases. It reported 800 cases for a second straight day on Sunday, taking the total number of cases close to 6,48,000.
Baijal further stressed upon the need to ramp up vaccine coverage with greater outreach, with a special emphasis on marginalised and poor sections that do not have access to any digital platform to register for COVID vaccine.
(With inputs from PTI and ANI.)
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