Union Health Ministry proposes lockdown in 150 districts; vaccine registration for 18+ begins today

The Union Health Ministry has proposed imposing strict restrictions, including a complete lockdown in districts with high test positivity rate (TPR).

According to reports, the Ministry proposed a complete lockdown in around 150 districts with a Covid-19 positivity rate above 15%. This proposal comes at a time when the healthcare systems are under tremendous stress due to the raging pandemic

The Union health ministry chaired a high-level meeting on Tuesday on this matter. Reportedly, the Centre, in consultation with the state governments, will take the final decision on the Health Ministry’s proposal.

With many states seeing a high positivity rate, a senior official told news agencies that a lockdown is essential in the next few weeks for districts with very high positivity rate.

Several states, including Kerala, have already imposed lockdown-like restrictions, weekend curfews and weeklong curfews to curb the spread of Covid-19. Currently, Kerala has a TPR of over 20%, and many districts are reporting TPR over 15%. Kerala recorded its highest single-day spike with 32,819 Covid-19 cases on Tuesday. The rise in Covid-19 cases in Kerala is due to the fast transmitting double-mutant variant found in 13 districts of Kerala. Meanwhile, India has recorded over 3,60,960 daily Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours.

Meanwhile, Covid-19 vaccine registration for those between 18 and 45 years will begin from 4 pm today. In a tweet, the Ministry of Health said that registration for the newly eligible category for Covid-19 vaccination opens today at 4 pm on the CoWIN and Aarogya Setu apps. The vaccination will begin on May 1.