Hours after the principal scientific advisor to the central government said a third wave of the coronavirus is “inevitable”, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday said the state has started preparing for it.
“We’re preparing for that since last month,” CM Thackeray said while addressing the state today.
The Maharashtra Chief Minister also said that several districts are witnessing a decline in Covid-19 cases while some districts are seeing an increase. “We’re keeping a close tab on it,” he added.
CM Thackeray also spoke about the acute shortage of medical oxygen for Covid-19 patients in Maharashtra amid the second wave of the pandemic. The state government has urged the Centre to enhance the present allocation of LMO to the state by 200 metric tonnes daily.
On acute shortage of medical oxygen in Maha
“We’ve demanded 1700 MT O2 and 1200 MT is produced by us, the rest 500 MT is provided to us by other states and sources with the help of Center. We’ve to increase our O2 generation capacity up to 3000 MT every day. We’re doing preparations for this under ‘Mission Oxygen’ Program,” the Maharashtra CM said.
On Supreme Court’s verdict on Maratha Reservation, he said, “It was clear in today’s verdict that a decision on Maratha Reservation can be taken only by the Center and the President.”
“So,I request PM Modi and President Kovind to intervene in the matter. As the Center turned SC verdicts in Shah Bano Case and ST/SC Atrocity Act, Center should do the same for it,” he added.
The state has already been under strict lockdown-like curbs from 14 April to curb the surge in Covid-19 cases. The lockdown, which was to end on 1 May, has been extended till 15 May.
Earlier today, Prof K Vijay Raghavan, the principal scientific advisor to the central government said that a third wave of Covid-19 is “inevitable”. He also warned that vaccines will need to be “updated” to deal with the new strains.
Addressing a press meet on India’s Covid-19 situation, Prof Raghavan said the time when the third wave of Covid-19 will occur and its scale is not certain at present.
In the wake of the changing nature of Covid-19 variants, we must be ready for the third wave, he said, adding, “We can’t predict the timing, but it seems inevitable. We must prepare ourselves and be ready for it.”
Meanwhile, Maharashtra reported 920 deaths due to Covid-19, taking the toll to 72,662, while 57,640 new cases pushed the overall infection count to 48,80,542 on Wednesday, a state health department official said.
The state reported 5,760 new cases and 30 more deaths as compared to Tuesday, when the daily infection count was 51,880 and fatalities were 891.
Maharashtra’s coronavirus recovery rate currently stood at 85.32%, while the fatality rate was 1.49%.
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