Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a video conference with chief ministers to assess the Covid-19 situation in the country as well as the vaccination drive amid a spike in active cases that has increased the government’s worry. Chief Ministers of West Bengal and Chhattisgarh have skipped the meeting.
PM Modi’s last interaction with chief ministers was in January before the vaccination roll-out. He had announced that the Centre will bear the expenses of vaccinating nearly three crore healthcare and frontline workers in the first round and suggested that politicians, should not be part of this initial exercise.
The announcement comes in the backdrop of states such as Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu continuing to report a surge in Covid-19 daily cases, accounting for 78.41 per cent of the new cases.
Fifteen of the 19 districts in India with the highest number of coronavirus cases in the last ten days are in Maharashtra, which is grappling with an alarming spike in Covid cases.
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