Amid Delhi's COVID spike, PM Modi calls meet to review nationwide situation on April 27

Illustration of PM Narendra Modi (Image: Moneycontrol)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair a meeting of top officials on April 27 to review the country's COVID-19 situation, reports said on April 24.

The meeting will be convened at "12 pm on Wednesday" via video-conferencing, news agency ANI learnt from official sources. It was not specified whether chief ministers of all states and union territories would be asked to attend.

The report comes amid an alarming surge in the coronavirus count in Delhi. The national capital accounted for 1,094 out of the 2,527 fresh cases reported over the past 24 hours, as per the last update issued by the Union health ministry.

The city's daily infection count, which had dropped below 100 last month, has been increasing constantly the first week of April. The surge in cases compelled Delhi's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government to reinforce the mandatory mask mandate.

At 3,975, Delhi, at present, has the highest active COVID-19 case load in the country.

The R-value, which is a key metric to assess the transmissibility of the disease, has surged to 2.1 in the city, researchers at IIT Madras said. The countrywide R-value for the week ending April 18 stood at 1.3.

Experts believe that the fresh COVID-19 surge in Delhi is being driven by Omicron sub-lineage BA.2.12. The variant has been detected in a majority of samples sent for genome sequencing from the city, sources told News18 earlier this week.

Moneycontrol learnt from top sources at Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) that another Omicron variant derivative - BA.2.12.1 - has also been detected in a few samples sent from Delhi. However, an official confirmation was awaited.

India has so far been hit by three major waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the first two being the most lethal. The second wave accounted for the majority of the estimated five lakh coronavirus-related deaths recorded across the nation.

The third wave, which was triggered by the Omicron variant, had hit parts of the nation in December last year and lasted till February. The fatality-count, however, remained low, which experts attributed to the immunity gained by the bulk of the population through vaccination and exposure to the virus.