‘Allow only fully-jabbed to attend mass gatherings’

Govt cautions citizens ahead of festive season

Mass gatherings should be discouraged but if that’s not possible, then only the fully vaccinated should be allowed, the Centre said, while urging people to get vaccinated and follow Covid-appropriate behaviour. The government warned that the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic was not yet over in the country, though the weekly positivity rate was showing an overall declining trend since the week ending May 10.

However, 39 districts reported over 10% weekly positivity rate in the week ending August 31, while in 38 districts it was between 5% and 10%, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said.

He said that the number of districts reporting more than 100 daily cases has declined from 279 in the week ending on June 1, to 42 in the week ending on August 30. Only Kerala has more than 1 lakh active cases while Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have active cases between 10,000 and 1 lakh. In 31 states and Union Territories the number of active cases is less than 10,000, he said.

Bhushan added that 69% of the total cases in the last week were reported from Kerala alone.

India recorded its highest number of daily Covid-19 infections in over two months on Thursday with 47,092 people contracting the disease as the country's total tally of cases rose to 3,28,57,937. In view of the upcoming festive season amid the scare of the third wave of COVID-19 infections striking the country, the Centre said mass gatherings should be discouraged. “Full vaccination should be a prerequisite if it is absolutely essential to attend a gathering,” ICMR Director General Dr Balram Bhargava said.