Pressing the panic button soon after recording 4,986 fresh cases in last 24 hours, the State Government has extended lockdown in 12 districts including Indore on Saturday, in consultation with the district crisis management committees.
Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and senior officers held video conferencing with the district crisis groups on Saturday. Urban areas of Indore, Ujjain, Shajapur and Rau area will be under lockdown till April 19 by 6am, the Addl Chief Secretary Home Rajesh Rajora said.
Similarly, rural and urban areas of Barwani, Rajgarh and Vidisha will be under absolute prohibitive measures till April 19 morning. Balaghat, Narsinghpur, Seoni and urban areas of Jabalpur will be put under absolute lockdown from April 12 evening to April 22 6am. Several wards in Bhopal are already lockdown till April 19 6am.
Other districts like Ratlam, Chhindwara, Betul, Katni and Khargone are also facing lockdown ranging from seven to nine days.
Indore and Bhopal continue to remain Covid19 hotspots in Madhya Pradesh with Indore reported 912 fresh cases in last 24 hours and five deaths while Bhopal followed closely with 736 cases and Jabalpur remained third most affected district with 369 fresh cases in the same duration.
Indore and Bhopal have recorded test positivity rate of 15% and 16%. With 4986 fresh cases in 24 hours, Madhya Pradesh has attained test positivity rate of 13.2% and registered 24 deaths. The numbers of active cases have surged to over 32,000 in the state and total cases of infections since March last year have gone up to over 3.32 lakh.
However, opposition Congress party and some media reports have put numbers of casualties much above the government figures accusing the administration of under reporting the Covid19 mortalities. State Government issued clarifications on hospitals beds, oxygen supply and Remdesivir injections on Saturday.
Addl Chief Secretary (Health) Md Suleman speaking to the media said that bed occupancy is around 35% in MP with districts like Indore and Bhopal having 70% occupancy and some districts having around 5%. Whenever bed occupancy surges to 75%, we increase ICU and HDU beds, he added.
We have also issued a Hospital Admission Protocol so that those only in need of hospitalisation are given beds and others could remain in home isolation, said the officer. Private hospitals have provided 13285 beds for Covid19 treatment, said Suleman.
On Oxygen consumption growth, the officer said on March 22, the state consumed only 64 metric tonnes of oxygen while on April 8, it mounted to whopping 234 metric tonnes. Though it was steady at 131 metric tonnes from March 22 to April 5. He said there is no shortage as the state has 277 metric tonnes of supply but he hinted towards hoarding of oxygen.
