New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair a meeting of the Union Council of Ministers today, which is likely to discuss the Covid situation including the rising number of Omicron cases, and may also review the functioning of a few ministries.
The meeting will be held virtually on Wednesday evening, according to sources.
The work done by the Road and Transport Ministry and Civil Aviation and Telecom ministries may be reviewed in the meeting, the sources said
A wider discussion on the COVID-19 situation is also likely during the meeting, they said.
The meeting is being held a week after Prime Minister Modi held a review meeting on Covid-19 preparedness wherein he directed the top officials coordinating India's COVID-19 response, to maintain a high level of vigil and alertness.
The PM had stressed continued adherence to COVID-safe behavior and how the same was of "paramount importance even today”.
Soon after the PM's review meeting, the Union Health Ministry said that multi-disciplinary Central teams would be deployed in ten identified states, some of which are either reporting an increasing number of Omicron and COVID-19 cases or slow vaccination pace. Central teams are to be deployed in Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Mizoram, Karnataka, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Punjab.
These teams will be stationed in the states for three to five days and will work along with the State Health Authorities and will specifically look at areas of contact tracing, including surveillance, containment operations, and COVID-19 testing including sending of adequate samples from clusters to the INSACOG network for genome sequencing.
