Centre warns Maharashtra, says 8 of 10 districts with highest active COVID-19 cases

New Delhi, March 31: Expressing the concern over the current situation in the Maharashtra, Union ministry of health and family welfare (MoHFW) said that 8 of the 10 most-affected covid-19 district are from Maharashtra. Centre also said, that covid is "turning from bad to worse" and is a huge cause of worry, especially for some states.

During the press release, Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said the 10 districts with maximum active COVID-19 cases are Pune (59,475), Mumbai (46,248), Nagpur (45,322), Thane (35,264), Nashik (26,553), Aurangabad (21,282), Bengaluru Urban (16,259), Nanded (15,171), Delhi (8,032), Ahmednagar (7,952).

Bhushan further said that Maharashtra has a weekly average positivity of 23%, as against the weekly national average positivity of 5.65%. “Punjab has a weekly average of 8.82%, Chhattisgarh 8%, Madhya Pradesh 7.28%, Tamil Nadu 2.50%, Karnataka 2.45%, Gujarat 2.20%, and Delhi 2.04%,” he added.

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The Health Secretary also informed that 807 cases of the UK strain, 47 cases of the South African variant, and one case of the Brazilian variant of the Covid-19 virus have been found in India so far.

Bhushan also expressed the need for increased testing with a focus on RT-PCR tests, adding that Rapid Antigen tests should be done in densely populated areas.

Bhushan said that surveillance of the COVID-positive patient needs to be done in case of home isolation, and if that is not possible then the person should be quarantined in an Institutional center.

"We spoke to representatives of these states. We told them why are they not increasing testing when cases are increasing. It's essential to increase testing with a focus on RT-PCR tests. Rapid Antigen tests are used for screening tests in densely populated areas," the Health Secretary said.

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Besides this Helth secretary also slammed the Maharashtra government while responding to a question on whether the Maharashtra government has said that it wants to do door-to-door vaccination. He said, "Till date, we haven't received any specific request from the Maharashtra Government. In India, we do Universal Immunisation but even there we've not done door-to-door vaccination."