‘Need For A Mini Lockdown In India’

As India is facing an uncontrollable second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, AIIMS Director Dr Randeep Guleria said that a “mini lockdown” is required in order to stop the expansion of rapid growth of the virus. India’s new cases have climbed to 81,466 in the last 24 hours.

Union Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba held a high-level meeting with Chief Secretaries, DGP and Health Secretaries of 11 states and union territories (UTs) on Friday and called the situation ‘particularly worrying’. Even children are infected and the main reason is people’s apathy towards social distancing, said Rajiv Gauba.

The centre focuses on the need for containment zones again in the states, especially in Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Delhi, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Chandigarh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Haryana. Therefore,  keeping in mind the enormous cases that have emerged, AIIMS claim that the situation in the country has worsened and needs to be locked down as soon as possible. 

Matter of concerns:

1.     The national capital, Delhi reported over 3,500 new COVID-19 cases on Friday.

2.     India reported a 5.5% growth rate in daily COVID-19 deaths in this period.

3.     469 people succumbed to the virus in the last 24 hours, taking the death toll to 1,63,396.

4.     The total number of COVID-19 cases in the country reached 1,23,03,131.

5.     The current COVID-19 case growth rate of 6.8% in March 2021 has surpassed the previous record of 5.5% (June 2020). 

6.   Single-day cases are highest since September 26, 2020.