India to go for Vaccination Festival from April 11 to April 14. Prime Minister urges Chief Ministers to concentrate on more Covid Testing, Tracking & Treatment

Tika Utsav from April 11 to April 14

Saying that there is no need for lockdowns, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday urged Chief Ministers to concentrate on “testing, tracking, treating and more vaccination” and suggested conducting a vaccination festival ‘Tika Utsav’ between April 11 to April 14. Modi reiterated to 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 said that states must focus on micro containment zones and not on lockdown methods.

“I propose from 11th April till 14th April, we should make TIKA UTSAV. Aim for 100% vaccination of people above 45 years. April 11 is Jyotiba Phule Ji’s birth anniversary and April 14 is Babasaheb Ambedkar‘s birth anniversary, in the meantime let us all celebrate ‘Tika Utsav’. Our target should be to test at least 30 contacts in 72 hours per Covid positive patient. The borders of containment zones should be particular and not vague.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray in the meeting demanded more supply of vaccines and also demanded approval from the Centre for a vaccine production facility in the state to meet the growing demands.

“I want to appeal to all the CMs to go for proactive testing so that we can track asymptomatic patients. We need to focus on testing first. We need to change and not take casually by following Covid protocols. We should not take testing lightly. Earlier we did not have the infrastructure to deal with the pandemic and we had to use lockdown as a tool…but today we do not need a lockdown. Instead of calling it a night curfew, we should call it “Corona Curfew“,” said Modi.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray in the meeting demanded more supply of vaccines and also demanded approval from the Centre for a vaccine production facility in the state to meet the growing demands. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee did not attend the meeting. Union Home Minister Amit Shah was also present in the meeting.

Prime Minister said that in many states administration was appearing lax. “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.