Amid rise in COVID-19 cases, PM Narendra Modi to chair meet with chief ministers
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The meeting scheduled for Thursday is this year's first meeting of the Prime Minister with the chief ministers
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a coronavirus (COVID-19) review meeting on Thursday (January 13) amid a sharp increase in the number of virus cases in the country after the emergence of the Omicron variant.
The Indian Prime Minister will interact with the chief ministers of all states at 4:30pm (local time) via video conferencing to assess the COVID situation.
The meeting scheduled for Thursday is this year's first meeting of the Prime Minister with the chief ministers.
It is expected that PM Modi will discuss state-specific scenarios, best practices and the public health response to counter the Covid threat.
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As per the data on Thursday, India registered 2,47,417 fresh COVID-19 cases (27% higher than yesterday) and 84,825 recoveries in the last 24 hours.
The active cases in the country are 11,17,531 and the daily positivity rate is at 13.11 per cent. The confirmed Covid cases caused by the Omicron variant are 5,488.
Dr VK Paul, who is a NITI Aayog member, had cautioned on Wednesday that the infection caused by the Omicron variant of coronavirus should not be considered common cold and people should not take it lightly.
"Omicron is replacing Delta variant of COVID-19 as it is highly transmissible. It should be considered as the common cold. Normally, the transmission or expansion of the pandemic would take longer but this time it has been very rapid because of the high transmissibility," he said at the Health Ministry media briefing.