Covid surge: Ramp up tests, Centre tells states

NEW DELHI: As the surge in Covid-19 infections in the country entered its eighth week and daily cases crossed 6,000 for first time in over 200 days, the Centre on Friday asked states to identify emerging Covid hotspots by ramping up testing and monitoring trends of influenza-like illnesses and severe acute respiratory infections.

India recorded 6,050 new cases of the virus on Thursday, the highest daily tally since September 15 last year. This was a day after the daily tally had topped 5,000 for the first time in over six months. The rate of growth of infections has increased sharply in the last 10 days or so, with cases currently doubling in around seven days.

Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya, who held a review meeting to assess the situation with the health ministers and top officials of various states on Friday, said 23 states/UTs currently have average tests per million below the national average.

He asked them to expeditiously increase the rate of testing from 100 tests per million, as on the week ending April 7. Mandaviya also stressed on the need to increase the share of RT-PCR in tests.

Thirteen fresh Covid fatalities were confirmed in the last 24 hours. With this, 59 deaths have been recorded in the last seven days, up from 38 in the preceding seven-day period. While deaths remain low during the current surge, the toll has been inching as active cases swell. The count of active cases is expected to cross 30,000 by Friday night, up from 16,300 a week ago.

According to data shared by the Union health ministry, 1.78 lakh Covid-19 tests were conducted across states/UTS in the last 24 hours and the positivity rate was recorded at 3.39%.

India has been witnessing a steady increase in Covid-19 cases, with average daily cases rising to 4,188 in the week ending April 7, from 571 in the week ending March 17.

Eight states are reporting high number of Covid cases in India with 10 or more districts reporting more than 10% positivity in Kerala, Maharashtra and Delhi and over 5 districts reporting more than 5% positivity in the states of Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Haryana, the health ministry said.


The government, in the review meeting with states, stressed on the importance of enhancing public awareness campaigns regarding adherence to Covid appropriate behaviour.

He requested all the state health ministers to personally monitor and review the preparedness of all logistics and infrastructure including availability of sufficient designated hospital beds and ensure that there is adequate stock of essential medicines. States were also asked to regularly update their Covid data on the Covid India Portal. Next week, on Monday and Tuesday, a nationwide mock drill is planned to assess emergency preparedness of both public and private hospitals.


The states were informed in the review meeting that WHO was closely tracking one subvariant of interest (VOI), XBB.1.5, while six other subvariants are being monitored (BQ.1, BA.2.75, CH.1.1, XBB, XBF and XBB.1.16). “It was highlighted that while Omicron and its sub-lineages continue to be the predominant variant, most of the assigned subvariants have little or no significant transmissibility, disease severity or immune escape. The prevalence of XBB.1.16 increased from 21.6% in Feb to 35.8% in March,” the ministry said. A senior official added that no evidence of a surge in hospitalisations or mortality had been reported yet.