PM MODI TO HOLD COVID REVIEW MEETING TODAY

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a meeting on the Covid-19 situation in the country on Thursday amid concerns caused by the Omicron variant of Sars-CoV-2 that causes Covid-19, people familiar with the developments said on Wednesday.

India has so far recorded 263 cases of the Omicron variant across 15 states and Union territories and at least 90 of the infected people have either recovered or migrated, according to a tally across states as on Wednesday night.

The people cited above said that PM Modi will take stock of the Covid-19 pandemic situation across the country.

There have also been demands that the government allow booster doses of vaccines to be administered to those already fully inoculated against Covid-19, as has been done by many countries.

India reported 6,317 fresh Covid-19 cases and 318 deaths in the last 24 hours, informed the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Wednesday. The country’s active caseload currently stands at 78,190, the lowest in 575 days.

The meeting by PM Modi comes on the heels of Union government’s advisory to states and Union territories on Tuesday, asking them to “activate” war rooms, keep analysing even small trends and surges and keep taking strict and prompt containment action at the district and local levels.

In its communication on Tuesday, the Centre said the Omicron variant of the SARSCoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19 is at least thrice more transmissible than its Delta variant. With the administration of 5,705,039 vaccine doses in the last 24 hours, India’s Covid-19 vaccination coverage has exceeded 1.38 billion, according to the health ministry data.