Economic momentum must continue: PM at Covid review with states, rules out lockdown

New Delhi, January 13

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday ruled out any lockdown in the wake of the ongoing Covid 19 surge and urged states and UTs to focus on local containment to ensure minimum impact on people’s livelihoods and economic momentum.

Asking people to stay alert but to avoid panic, the PM said vaccines were the best tools against Omicron and other Covid 19 variants and it was important to fight vaccine hesitancy and myths.

“While making any strategy, it is very important to keep in mind that there should be minimum damage to the livelihood of common people, economic activities and the momentum of the economy should be maintained. It would be better to focus more on local containment,” the PM said during his closing remarks at a Covid 19 review with chief ministers as India saw 2,47,417 new infections, the highest in 236 days and active cases rose to 11,17,531, the highest in 216 days.

The PM also stressed the need to strengthen home isolation to minimize the burden on hospitals and said, “Better tracking and treatment in home isolation will lower the need for hospitalization and boost people’s confidence.”

The PM said hard work was the sole path India needed to take in the fight against Omicron and victory was its sole option.

He asked the states to follow the past strategy of preemptive, proactive and collective approach as the mantra of victory and hailed India’s Covid vaccine statistics.

“India has given the first dose to about 92 percent of the adult population. The coverage of the second dose has also reached around 70 percent and there are still three days to go since the national Covid inoculation drive began on January 16, 2021. In just ten days, over 3 crore adolescents have been vaccinated. This signals the strength of our system,” the PM said urging states to enhance precaution dose coverage to firewall the health army of India. The precaution dose is available for health and frontline workers and 60 plus people with comorbidities.

Assuring health infrastructure support to states, the PM said several states had ramped up their readiness for Covid using the Centre’s emergency package of Rs 23,000 crore.

The PM listed 800 pediatric units, 1.5 lakh new ICU beds, over 5000 special ambulances, 950 liquid medical oxygen storage tanks that have been added under the package.

He also asked the states to prepare for any potential future waves, noting that the suspicion around Omicron was settling and the variant was known to infect much faster than any other.

The PM however said there was no cause to panic and asked people and administrations to stay alert through ongoing festivities adding, “We must limit the spread of Omicron. We will defeat it together.”