After Breaching 1 lakh Count, India Registers 96,563 Infections Today; Mini Lockdowns Suggested by AIIMS Chief

New Delhi: The Union Health Minister will convene with the health ministers of the state and the UTs which have been registering a huge surge in infections. Following this, PMO has announced interaction with the chief ministers of the 11 affected states on April 8 at 6:30 pm.  PM Modi’s last interaction with chief ministers was on March 17 during which he had expressed concern over the rise in COVID-19 cases in parts of the country and called for “quick and decisive” steps to check the “emerging second peak”. 

After crossing a 1 lakh infection on Sunday, the state health departments reported 96,556 new infections lately. Out of these around 7,83,844 are active and are under treatment. The death toll now seems to be competing for the six-digit figure flag.  The number of deaths climbed to 1,65,577 with 445 people dying of COVID-19 in a span of 24 hours. India is the country with the third-highest coronavirus caseload in the world after the United States and Brazil. The recovery rate has drastically fallen to 92.5% where only 50,095 have recovered after hospitalization and isolation.

 Dr Randeep Guleria, chief of Delhi’s All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, on Monday, underscored the need for a strategy that can include lockdown in hotspots. He advised mini lockdowns in contaminated zones across the states to stop people from socializing. 

Maharashtra, the worst-hit state in the country, reported 47,288 new coronavirus cases, pushing the total count in the state to over 3.23 lakh.  Delhi recorded 3,548 new coronavirus cases on Monday, taking the tally to over 6.79 lakh while Chhattisgarh observed 7,300 infections.