Centre tells Madhya Pradesh to curb non-essential movements as Covid cases rise

With the Covid-19 situation deteriorating in Madhya Pradesh, the Centre on Thursday held a special high-level review of the ground situation in India’s second-largest state that witnessed a 79% increase in weekly new cases in the last two weeks.

Madhya Pradesh has reported a 13.4% week-on-week increase in new Covid-19 cases, as many as 44 districts out of 52 crossed their reported highest cases in the last 30 days.

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On Tuesday, MP registered 8,998 new cases, breaking into the top five states with the maximum Covid-19 caseload. The number rose to 9,720 cases on Wednesday and 10,166 fresh cases on Thursday, which is the state’s biggest one-day spike since the pandemic began. The worst affected districts are Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior and Khandwa.

At the review meeting attended by the Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla, Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan and other senior officials, the state administration has been asked to curb the non-essential movement of large groups of people and social gatherings that could turn into super-spreader events.

The state has also been asked to draft the final year MBBS and nursing students as well as senior and junior interns as hospital hands to fight the rising number of Covid-19 cases. The Centre has also asked the MP to strengthen and enhance oxygen and ICU beds and effectively implement a five-fold strategy of “test, track, treat, follow Covid-appropriate behaviour and vaccinate” to check the spread.