The Indian Ministry of Health has announced nationwide mock drills to assess hospitals’ preparedness against the surge of COVID-19 cases in the country. Both public and private facilities are set to take part in the two-day drills, with Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya overseeing the one at AIIMS, Jhajjar. Mandaviya urged state and district health departments to analyse their ability to tackle the rise in coronavirus infections, identifying emergency hotspots by checking trends of influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) cases. The government also requested increasing the rate of testing from 100 tests per million as of the week ending April 7. In-person meetings and public events have been limited in India, as the number of daily fresh infections, hospitalisations, and deaths trend upward. The positivity rate was at 3.39% on April 9, and the total number of active cases in the country is 32,814. A variant of interest (VOI), XBB.1.5, and six other variants are under monitoring.
Meanwhile, in Delhi, Health Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj indicated that COVID-19 cases are likely to rise in the densely populated city in the coming days, and that the government is on high alert. Pune and Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation Hospitals have conducted mock drills to assess their readiness for treating COVID-19 patients, with 2,204 beds ready in Pune. Similarly, such drills were organised at over 40 hospitals, including government and private ones, in Madhya Pradesh. Tamil Nadu has also completed a mock drill at Rajiv Gandhi General Hospital, with health minister Ma Subramanian stating that the state has 350 or fewer COVID-19 infection cases and predicting that the fourth wave will be a mild effect compared to the third wave. The daily positivity rate was recorded at 6.91%, while the weekly positivity rate was at 3.67%. The COVID-19 virus may have originated from humans, according to a Chinese scientist claiming that the genetic sequences of viral samples taken from the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan suggest that COVID-19 may have originated from humans. Kerala, Haryana, and Puducherry have reinstated mandatory mask usage with certain conditions amid the rise in cases.
