India Covid: New safety measures announced for 6 states

New Delhi - This is to be done by maintaining a continued rigorous vigil in states showing an upsurge in cases of the pandemic.

Rajiv Gauba, India’s Cabinet Secretary, has initiated a number of steps in order "not to squander away the gains of the collective hard work of the last year" in containing Covid-19.

This is to be done by maintaining a continued rigorous vigil in states showing an upsurge in cases of the pandemic.

Six states have reported 85.75 per cent of the 16,488 new cases diagnosed in the last 24 hours, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare here. These states are Maharashtra, Kerala, Punjab, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.

Of these, Maharashtra reported the highest daily cases at 8,333, followed by Kerala with 3,671 cases and Punjab at a distant third of only 622 new cases.

The Cabinet Secretary, today met with Chief Secretaries of six states which have reported a high active caseload in the last one week to discuss a "COVID Management and Response Strategy" to deal with the new and emerging situation.

The meeting decided to closely monitor mutant strains of Coronavirus and cluster such cases for early hotspot identification and control, follow effective surveillance of potential super spreader events, increase RT- PCR tests in states and undertake priority vaccination in districts reporting higher cases.

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