Omicron, Assembly polls on agenda as Narendra Modi calls for Council of Ministers meet today

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be holding a Council of Ministers meeting today at 4 pm, according to reported information.

The agenda of the meet, as per a report by the Hindustan Times, is the rising cases of the Omicron variant of coronavirus and the next year’s Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.

PM Narendra Modi to hold Council of Minister meet on 29th December.

(file photo) pic.twitter.com/cO2xc3x6i3

— ANI (@ANI) December 24, 2021

The prime minister’s meet is expected to be attended by all ministers.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meet comes six days after he had held consultations to review the status of COVID-19 and Omicron, the new variant of concern.

Following that meet, Modi had stressed on COVID-appropriate behaviour, saying the fight against the pandemic is not over and directed officials to send teams to states with low vaccination, rising cases, and insufficient health infrastructure, to assist them in improving the situation.

As of Tuesday, India had added 46 more cases to its Omicron tally, taking the total count of such infections to 717 in the country.

Delhi led the spurt in fresh cases with 23 patients testing positive, taking the national capital’s total to 165, just two short of Maharashtra, which has the highest number of such cases in India.

Latest reports have said that a mild new COVID-19 wave may hit India in February 2022 and that in the “worst case scenario”, daily new cases may be in the range of 1.5 to 1.8 lakhs in February.

Incidentally, the Council of Meet comes shortly after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on 25 December that India will begin vaccinating children aged between 15-18 from 3 January and provide ‘precautionary doses’ to those above the age of 60 from 10 January.

With inputs from agencies