Will India Impose Lockdown Again? All Eyes on PM Modi’s Virtual Meeting With Chief Ministers Today

As per updates, Home Minister Amit Shah and Health Minister Harsh Vardhan will also be part of the meeting.

New Delhi: As the current Unlock 2.0 is coming to an end on July 31, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a virtual meeting with Chief Ministers of all states today to discuss the coronavirus situation and the steps to mitigate the effect of the health crisis of the country. He is also likely to discuss Unlock 3 with them.

As per updates, Home Minister Amit Shah and Health Minister Harsh Vardhan will also be part of the meeting.

However, this is not the first time that PM Modi will discuss the COVID-19 situation with the Chief Ministers. From the time, the nationawide lockdown was announced till now, PM Modi has held a number of meetings with the state/UT heads.

Notably, PM Modi had last week spoken to chief ministers of Bihar, Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand to took stock of the coronavirus situation.

In his earlier meetings with the chief ministers, PM Modi had stressed on the importance of lives and livelihood. He had said that the decisions need to be taken keeping in view both current needs and future requirements.

The development comes as India’s COVID-19 tally climbed to 13,85,522 on Sunday, while the recoveries mounted to 8,85,576.

The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said that country’s death toll rose to 32,063 with 705 fatalities being recorded in a day. There are 4,67,882 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country.

According to the updates from the ministry, as many as 36,145 patients have recuperated from coronavirus in a span of 24 hours, the highest recorded in a day, pushing the recovery rate to 63.92 per cent.

Issuing a statement, the ICMR said that a cumulative total of 1,62,91,331 samples have been tested up to July 25 with 4,42,263 samples being tested on Saturday.

Out of the total 705 deaths, 257 were reported from Maharashtra, 89 from Tamil Nadu, 72 from Karnataka, 52 from Andhra Pradesh, 42 from West Bengal, 39 from Uttar Pradesh, 29 from Delhi, 22 from Gujarat, 14 from Bihar, 12 from Jharkhand, 11 from Rajasthan and 10 from Odisha.

Apart from meeting chief ministers, PM Modi is also expected to launch today a ‘high throughput’ COVID-19 testing facilities in Noida, Mumbai and Kolkata, which will ramp up testing capacity and help strengthen early detection and treatment in the country.

The virtual launch event will be attended by Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan and the chief ministers of Maharashtra, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh — Uddhav Thackeray, Mamata Banerjee and Yogi Adityanath respectively.