Central teams to be deployed in 10 states amid COVID-19 surge, Omicron fears

NEW DELHI: The central government on Saturday said that it will deploy multi-disciplinary teams in at least 10 states amid a surge in COVID-19 cases and growing fears about the new Omicron variant.

"...A decision has been taken to deploy multi-disciplinary Central teams to 10 identified states some of which are either reporting an increasing number of Omicron & COVID-19 cases or slow vaccination pace...," the Union Health Ministry said.

“Multi-disciplinary Central teams will be deployed in Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Mizoram, Karnataka, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Punjab to monitor the spike in COVID-19 cases,” the Union Health Ministry said in an official statement.

#COVID19 | Multi-disciplinary Central teams to be deployed in Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Mizoram, Karnataka, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Punjab.

— ANI (@ANI) December 25, 2021

"These teams shall be stationed in States allotted for 3 to 5 days and will work along with the state health authorities," read the Union Health Ministry's letter.

"These teams shall be stationed in States allotted for 3 to 5 days & will work along with State Health Authorities," reads the Union Health Ministry's letter pic.twitter.com/wd9WXTEhXo — ANI (@ANI) December 25, 2021

The teams will contact tracing, including surveillance, containment operations along with Covid-19 testing including sending of adequate samples from clusters to the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium(INSACOG) network for genome sequencing.

Covid appropriate behaviours and its enforcement, availability of hospital beds, sufficient logistics including ambulances, ventilators, medical oxygen etc and vaccination progress, the Health Ministry release stated.

The order from the Union Health Ministry came as India on Saturday logged 7,189 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours. The tally of cases of the new Omicron variant of coronavirus in the country has risen to 415. As per the Health Ministry, the country`s active caseload stands at 77,032, presently the lowest in 579 days. 

"Active cases constitute 0.22 per cent of the country`s total positive cases, which is lowest since March 2020," said the Ministry. With 387 COVID deaths in the last 24 hours, the cumulative death toll due to the virus has climbed 4,79,520. 

The Ministry further informed that as many as 7,286 patients recovered from the virus in the last 24 hours, taking the cumulative tally of recovered patients since the beginning of the pandemic to 3,42,23,263.

Consequently, India`s recovery rate stands at 98.40 per cent, the highest since March 2020.11,12,195 COVID tests have also been conducted across the country in the last 24 hours. 

"India has so far conducted over 67.10 crore (67,10,51,627) cumulative tests," said the Ministry. As per the release, the weekly positivity rate at 0.60 per cent remains less than 1 per cent for the last 41 days now. While the daily positivity rate has been reported to be 0.65 per cent."

The daily positivity rate has remained below 2 per cent for last 82 days and below 3 per cent for 117 consecutive days now," stated the Ministry. 

Amid growing concerns over rising cases of COVID-19 and its fast-spreading new Omicron variant, several states and UTs have imposed night curfews and similar restrictions to tackle the situation.

Night curfews have been imposed in states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry, Haryana and eight cities of Gujarat (Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat, Rajkot, Bhavnagar, Jamnagar, Gandhinagar and Junagadh) from 11 pm to 5 am.