'India defeated Covid-19 last year, can do it again with faster speed’: PM Modi at review meet

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday asserted that India can overcome the second wave of Covid-19 infections like it defeated the virus last year. “...together India had defeated Covid last year and India can do it again, with the same principles but faster speed and coordination,” PM Modi said at a review meeting with top officials.

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“Reviewed preparedness to handle the ongoing COVID-19 situation. Aspects relating to medicines, oxygen, ventilators and vaccination were discussed. Like we did last year, we will successfully fight COVID with even greater speed and coordination,” PM Modi wrote on Twitter post the meeting.

The Prime Minister stressed that there is no substitute for testing, tracking and treatment and that early testing and proper tracking remains key to reduce mortality. He also said that local administrations need to be proactive and sensitive to people’s concerns, his office said in a statement.

Modi’s meeting comes against the backdrop of rising cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19). The daily case count has been surging past 200,000 for the past three days and the total infection tally of the country has reached 14.5 million.

During Saturday’s meeting, the Prime Minister also reviewed the status of the supply of Remdesivir and other medicines across states, and emphasised the need to utilise the full potential of India’s pharmaceutical industry to meet the rising demand for various medicines, his office said.

Amid reports of shortage of oxygen supply by several states, the Prime Minister on Friday chaired a meeting to ensure adequate supply of medical grade oxygen in the country. “PM Modi also took a detailed review of the current situation of oxygen supply and projected use in the coming 15 days across 12 high burden states (Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan). An overview of the district-level situation in these states was presented to the PM,” a government statement said.

On Saturday, PM Modi directed that the installation of approved medical oxygen plants should be sped up. “162 PSA Oxygen plants are being installed in 32 States/UTs from PM CARES. The officers informed that 1 lakh cylinders are being procured & they will be supplied to states soon, according to the PMO statement.

The Prime Minister also reviewed the status of availability and supply of ventilators and noted that a realtime monitoring system has been created. He directed officials to ensure that concerned state governments are sensitised to use the system proactively. On the issue of immunisation, Modi directed all officials to make efforts to utilise the entire national capacity, in public as well as private sector, to ramp up vaccine production, his office said.