Athawale repudiates Priyanka Vadra's charge of UP govt hiding reality of COVID situation

Union Minister Ramdas Athawale on Thursday refuted Congress general secretary Priyanka Vadra's charge that the Uttar Pradesh government is hiding the reality of the COVID-19 situation in the state. Writing on Twitter earlier in the day, Vadra requested the Yogi Adityanath-led government to take firm steps to control the novel coronavirus spread and save the lives of people instead of trying to spend resources on suppressing the grim situation on the ground. To buttress her point, she posted a video showing scenes outside a crematorium in Lucknow.

Maintaining that there is no truth in the Congress leader's allegation, the RPI(A) president contended, "The figures of the number of people testing positive are in the public domain. The Uttar Pradesh government is not trying to hide figures. She is being childish".

COVID-19 situation in Uttar Pradesh

In the last 24 hours, 22,439 persons tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Uttar Pradesh while 4,222 persons were discharged. At present, there are 1,29,848 active cases in the state while the death toll stands at 9,480. So far, 3,75,90,753 samples have been tested for the novel coronavirus. While a total of 86,24,856 persons have been inoculated in Maharashtra so far, 14,26,472 of them have received the second dose of the vaccine too. 

Earlier in the day, UP Deputy CM Dinesh Sharma announced that a night curfew will be imposed in Lucknow, Prayagraj, Varanasi, Kanpur, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Meerut, Gorakhpur, Jhansi, Bareli and Balia from 8 pm to 7 am. Moreover, he declared that high school and intermediate exams have been postponed till May 20. According to Sharma, a decision on the future of exams will be taken in the first week of May. 

India fast tracks vaccine approval process

With a huge spurt in the number of daily COVID-19 cases, many states have imposed a night curfew and imposed restrictions on gatherings. While the vaccination is currently open only for those aged above 45 years, the Centre has taken immediate steps to increase the pace of the drive. Apart from COVISHIELD and COVAXIN, the DCGI has now accepted the recommendations of the Subject Expert Committee of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation, paving way for the approval of and Sputnik V.

In an important announcement on Tuesday, the Union government declared that those vaccines that have been granted emergency approval for restricted use by USFDA, EMA, UK MHRA, PMDA Japan, or which are listed in WHO (Emergency Use Listing) will be granted emergency use approval in India. In place of the local clinical trial requirement, the post-approval bridging clinical trial shall be mandated. Furthermore, the first 100 beneficiaries of such foreign vaccines shall be assessed for 7 days for safety outcomes before it is rolled out for further immunization programme within India. A total of 10,06,73,167 persons have been inoculated in India till now, 1,37,10,545 of them have received the second dose of the vaccine too.