The Centre on Saturday deployed multi-disciplinary Central teams in ten States -Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Mizoram, Karnataka, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Punjab for Covid management, as per the letter by the Disaster Management Cell of the Health Ministry.

“In view of rapid surge in cases and deaths because of Covid-19, as reported by various news channels, the State Governments and noted in internal news, it has been seen that the number of Omicron cases have emerged in some States, it has also been observed that the pace of Covid vaccination in these States is less than the National Average,” the letter added.

These teams will particularly look at the areas of contract tracing, including surveillance, containment, operations, Covid testing including sending of adequate samples from clusters to INSACOG network for genome sequencing, Covid appropriate behaviour and its enforcement, availability of hospital beds, sufficient logistics including ambulances, ventilators, medical oxygen etc and vaccination progress.

Meanwhile, India reported 7,189 fresh cases on Saturday, higher than the previous day’s infections of 6,650. The weekly positivity rate stood at 0.60 per cent, less than 1 per cent for the last 41 days. The daily positivity rate was at 0.65 per cent, less than 2 per cent for the last 82 days. The Omicron cases increased to 415 in the country with the maximum cases in Maharashtra at 108, followed by Delhi at 79 and Gujarat at 43, as per the Health Ministry data.