Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday will virtually meet the Chief Ministers of all northeastern states to review the Covid-19 situation in the region at a time when the second wave of the pandemic continues to rage across the country.
The meeting with the Chief Ministers of Assam, Nagaland, Tripura, Sikkim, Manipur, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram will start at 11a.m.
The proposed meeting follows Union cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba’s interaction with the officials of the northeastern states’ home departments last Wednesday amid concerns over rising cases of coronavirus infection in the region.
The northeastern states have witnessed a recent spike in Covid-19 cases, despite a decrease in the number of cases across India. The central government had rushed multi-disciplinary expert teams to six states earlier this month, four of which were from the northeastern region — Assam, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, and Tripura.
The Union ministry of health and family welfare said that around 80% of the Covid-19 cases in India at the moment are being witnessed from 90 districts. As many as 14 of them are from the northeast, it added.
A recent letter circulated by Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan pointed out that Arunachal Pradesh is an area of concern that the state has a weekly positivity rate of 16.2% (between June 28 and July 4) and the trend saw an upward rise.
This comes as India on Monday witnessed a dip in cases as the country reported 37,154 new cases in the last 24 hours; the active caseload is at 4,50,899. The recovery rate increased to 97.22%. 39,649 patients recovered from COVID, according to the Union Health Ministry.
