Representational image  |  Photo Credit: PTI
New Delhi: Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Saturday advised five eastern states not to lower their guard and be vigilant even though the active cases of COVID-19 in most of the states and the positivity rate have shown a fall in the last two week
Mandaviya held a COVID review meeting with state health ministers, principal secretaries/ additional chief secretaries and information commissioners of Odisha, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and West Bengal, according to an official release.
Mandaviya urged them to monitor the case positivity rate on a daily basis and increase the RT-PCR testing rate as most of the states exhibited a lower share of such tests.
“While the active cases in most of the states and the positivity rate have shown a fall in the last two weeks, we still need to be vigilant and not lower our guard,” he stated.
The states were also advised to keep a close watch on the number of hospitalisations and deaths.
“It is important to analyse at the state level the proportion of vaccinated and unvaccinated of the hospitalised cases, the deaths and those on ventilators and oxygen support”, he advised them.