COVID-19: PM calls for four-day 'vaccination festival', asks states to curb virus spread on war footing

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday urged chief ministers to strengthen their efforts for the next 2-3 weeks to check the spread of the virus on a “war footing”. He also called for observing a vaccine festival between 11-14 April to inoculate the maximum number of eligible beneficiaries. In his interaction with chief ministers to discuss the COVID-19 situation and the ongoing vaccination drive, Modi asserted that the country had much more resources to deal with the virus than before and the focus should be on micro-containment zones. “There is a need to improve the governance system. I understand that because of the one-year battle, the system can experience tiredness and there can be laxity, but we must tighten it for 2-3 weeks and strengthen the governance,” he said. Modi emphasised ‘Test, Track, Treat’, Covid-appropriate behaviour and Covid management to contain the pandemic. Along with public participation, our hard-working doctors and health-care staff have helped a lot in handling the situation and are still doing it, he said. “With administration appearing lax in many states, rise in cases has increased problems. To stop the spread of the virus, there is a need to work on a war footing,” he said. The daily count of positive cases has reached a new record high of over 1.26 lakh, despite having dipped to about 20,000 a few weeks back. At a high-level meeting with senior officials, Prime Minister Modi had on Sunday reviewed the COVID-19 situation and vaccination exercise in the country amid the “alarming rate of growth” in infections and deaths. Modi had said the five-fold strategy of testing, tracing, treatment, COVID-appropriate behaviour and vaccination, if implemented with utmost seriousness and commitment, would be effective in curbing the spread of the pandemic, according to an official statement that was released after the meeting.