New Delhi: Amid a decreasing trend in the Covid-19 pandemic in India, experts from India's health domain on Thursday appealed for caution to avert any further spike of the virus.
"It's a fact that the number of Covid-19 cases in India is decreasing with government withdrawing all restrictions. However, it's time for us to remain cautious. The pandemic is not yet over, and it can change its character any moment," Dr Tamorish Kole, president of the Asian Society of Emergency Medicine, told ETV Bharat. While referring to the Covid-19 statistics reported across India, Dr Kole said that the statistics have witnessed a minimal jump of new cases.
On March 21, the number of new cases in India was 1410 with 33 deaths including 22 backlogs from Kerala. However, the number of new cases went up to 1910 on March 23 with 62 deaths (39 backlog deaths from Kerala).
"On previous occasions also, we have seen that laxity in adhering to Covid-19 behaviour was a major cause behind spike in Covid cases," said Dr Kole. Significantly, states like Kerala, Mizoram and Maharashtra are still the top three States registering the maximum number of cases with 702, 287 and 156 respectively.
In a letter issued to the States and UTs, Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla advised them to discontinue the issue of orders and guidelines under the Disaster Management Act. Bhalla, however, mentioned that States and UTs may continue to follow the guidelines and advisories that have been issued by the Union Health Ministry.
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"Government took the decision to discontinue issuing monthly guidelines under the DM Act after going through the Covid-19 related developments that are taking place at present. However, I would like to emphasise that people should adhere to the Covid appropriate behavior," said Dr Giridhar Gyani, director general of Association of Health Care Providers.
He said that the administration should also rigorously follow five Ts that is testing, tracing, treatment, teamwork as well as tracking and monitoring. Dr Gyani also emphasised that vaccination should also continue for all eligible people.
"Rapid scale of vaccination to Indian population was also a major cause that the situation in the country is under control," he added.
As per government statistics, 1, 82,42,68,730 vaccine doses have been administered till date with 97,92,36,978 first dose, 82,40,66,700 second dose and 2,09,65,052 precaution dose.
