Covid-19 spike: Modi to interact with chief ministers of northeast states on Tuesday

NEW DELHI: In the wake of concern over a high Covid-19 positivity rate in the northeast states, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will interact with chief ministers of eight states on Tuesday to discuss the situation in their region and measures to control the infection.

Even as the overall weekly Covid-19 positivity rate has come down to 2.32%, most states in the north east region have many districts with a positivity rate above 10%. Arunachal Pradesh leads the list with 10 districts above 10% positivity rate, whereas Manipur has nine, Meghalaya six, Assam and

Sikkim

has four each,

Tripura

has three, Mizoram has two, whereas Nagaland has one district with over 10% positivity.

The continuing high rate of infection in certain states including those in the NE region as well as rising burden in Kerala and Maharashtra have also impacted the rate of decline which has slowed down over last three weeks with daily new cases stagnating at an average of around 40,000. The Centre is worried as a similar trend was witnessed before the second wave hit when cases started rising with states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Punjab and Kerala.

The meeting will take place through video conferencing at 11 am. The states that will be part of the meeting are Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura, Sikkim, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram. Representatives from health ministry, NITI Aayog, home ministry and other relevant ministries will also be present in the meeting, an official said.

While there is a steady decline in overall Covid-19 burden across the country, the northeast region has been a cause of worry, as also Kerala, as the number of cases are either rising or not falling in line with the nationwide trend. Cases are falling in Maharashtra but the the infection remains stubborn in certain western part of the state.With total 37,154 new cases reported from across the country on Sunday, the total active caseload in the country stood at around 4.50 lakh cases.