Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to meet chief ministers of seven states on Wednesday to discuss the coronavirus situation. These states -- Maharashtra, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Delhi -- have contributed majorly to India's exponentially-increasing COVID-19 cases. The meeting also comes just ahead of the completion of Unlock 4 phase that would end on September 30. Since the lockdown on March 25, there have been a series of meetings between CMs and the Prime Minister to discuss ways to curb the rise in coronavirus cases.
These seven states account for 63 per cent of the total coronavirus cases in the country. The Centre would send its teams to monitor coronavirus cases in states. They would also help state governments in containment, surveillance, testing as well as efficient clinical management.
Delhi would receive a Centre-Delhi government joint team. The meeting would also discuss whether these seven states would require guidance from the central government.
India has the second-highest number of COVID-19 cases in the world, after the US. Over 5.5 million total coronavirus cases have been reported in India. However, the health ministry has said that active cases are less than a fifth of the total number of cases.
Maharashtra has 2,75,017 active cases, while Karnataka has 95,354 active cases, Uttar Pradesh 64,164 active cases, Tamil Nadu 46,495 active cases, Andhra Pradesh 74,518 active cases, Punjab 21,661 active cases and Delhi 30,941 active cases.
Meanwhile, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Dr Harsh Vardhan has said that the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has been conducting large-scale sequencing of the nationally representative strains of SARS-CoV-2 virus collected over the past several months. He added that so far no significant or direct mutations have been detected in the strains in India.
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