Modi to meet state chief ministers amid new Covid-19 wave in India
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The step up in government oversight underscores the Modi administration's efforts to avoid another deadly outbreak.
PHOTO: REUTERS
NEW DELHI (BLOOMBERG) - India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for a meeting with state chief ministers on Wednesday (April 27) to review preparedness against another wave of Covid-19 infections as daily cases touch a six-week high and trigger concerns.
The South Asian nation, which has been among the worst-hit nations globally, added 2,927 new cases Wednesday - the highest one-day jump since March 13 - pushing the total official tally past 43 million, according to government data. Deaths rose marginally, taking the total fatalities to 523,654.
The step up in government oversight underscores the Modi administration's efforts to avoid another outbreak of the scale seen last summer when daily cases topped 400,000, overwhelming hospitals and crematoriums.
As the deadly Delta variant ripped through the crowded nation of almost 1.4 billion people last year, it left citizens pleading for oxygen and other medical resources on social-media platforms.
Mr Modi's meeting with state chief ministers comes almost a week after capital New Delhi reinstated mask mandates and stepped up surveillance for new Covid variants.
Earlier this month, Mumbai detected the highly transmissible XE variant.
While there are no stress signs in the country's health care system, rising infections risk thwarting the recent return to normalcy with reopening of schools, offices and movie theaters.
"The filtered daily growth rate of new cases in India stood at 9.5 per cent on April 23, having risen steadily since turning positive on April 13," a Covid-19 India tracker developed by the University of Cambridge said in an April 23 note.
But the current surge looks "much more muted than the Omicron wave which took off toward the end of last year", it said.