'COVID-19 Measures Are In Right Direction': PM Modi Interacts With CMs As Tally Rises To 22,68,676

As COVID-19 cases rose to 22,68,676 and the death toll climbed to 45,257 on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a video conference with Chief Ministers of around 10 states to discuss the situation.

Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Punjab, Bihar, Gujarat, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh were invited for the virtual meet. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh was also present in the meet. This was PM Modi's seventh video conference with the CMs ever since the outbreak of the pandemic. This was his first meeting after Unlock 3.0 was announced.

During the meeting, PM Modi said that the measures taken by them are in the right direction as the average fatality rate has been continuously decreasing, while the recovery rate is increasing every day. "Every state is fighting the battle against the challenging situation arising due to COVID-19 pandemic. Role of each and every state is very significant in overall control of the spread of the disease," he added.

PM Modi noted that COVID-19 had become a huge problem in some districts of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi, after which a review meeting was held and under Home Minister Amit Shah's chairmanship, the situation was brought under control.

"Experts are saying now that if within 72 hours, a person is diagnosed, then the spread can be controlled to a great extent. So, it is important that all the people who come in contact with an infected person must be tested within 72 hours," he further said.

Meanwhile, India's novel coronavirus tally rose to 22,68,676 on Tuesday with 53,601 new COVID-19 cases, while the death toll climbed to 45,257 with 871 more fatalities, the Health Ministry said. The recoveries surged to 15,83,490, taking the recovery rate to 69.33 per cent. The case fatality rate has dropped to about 1.99 per cent, the ministry said. There are 6,39,929 active cases of the coronavirus disease.