There was a high-level meeting chaired by the PM to have a discussion on the situation of COVID and vaccination in the country. The PM was briefed about the current covid situation in the country by the officials. He was informed about the rapidly growing tests in the country, from around 50 lakhs test in march 1st week to 1.3 crore tests per week now. The PM was also informed about the gradual decrease in the positivity rate and increase in the recovery rate. The efforts of the healthcare workers, state governments and central government has been paying off as the cases which were over 4 lakhs per day have been coming down.
A detailed presentation was given by the officials to the state and district level situations of covid, testing, oxygen availability, healthcare infrastructure and vaccination roadmap.
It was said by the PM that containment strategies are important specially in the states where the TPR in districts are high. With the use of both RT PCR and Rapid tests, the testing would be scaled up further especially in areas with high test positivity rates as instructed by the PM. The states were also encouraged by the PM to report their numbers transparently without any pressure of high numbers adversely showing their efforts. Augmentation of healthcare resource in rural areas was also asked by the PM to focus on the door-to-door testing and surveillance. There would be empowerment of ASHA and Anganwadi workers with all necessary tools. The PM also asked for the guidelines for home isolation and treatment to be made available in easy languages and illustrations in rural areas.
There have been directions by the Prime Minister to work out a distribution plan for ensuring oxygen supply in rural areas including through provision of oxygen concentrators. It was also added by the Prime Minister that necessary training should be provided to health workers for the operation of such equipment and power supply should be ensured for the smooth operation of such medical devices.
Serious note was taken of the reports of unused ventilators in the storage by the Prime Minister and he directed to take an immediate audit of installation and operation of ventilators provided by the Central Government to be carried out. It was also added by the Prime Minister to provide refresher training for properly operating ventilators to the healthworkers if necessary.
The PM also said that the fight against COVID-19 in India has been guided by the scientists and subject experts and this shall be continued in the same manner. The PM was also briefed by the officials about the process of vaccination and the state-wise coverage of 45+ population. The future vaccine availability plans were also discussed. The PM has directed all the states to speed up the vaccination.
