Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said Monday the health of citizens was a priority and celebrations could be held later as well, with fears of a third wave occurring amid an upcoming festive season in the country. The state has also been recording a higher number of cases.
The Chief Minister, along with several other senior cabinet ministers, took part in the Disaster management meeting held Monday. “We can celebrate festivals later. Let us prioritise the lives and health of our citizens. The situation can go out of hand in view of the spike in daily cases,” he said in a statement.
“Who would like to impose restrictions on festivals and religious programmes? But people’s lives are important,” he said.
Thackeray has directed the cancellation of all social, religious, and political gatherings and meetings, as experts say crowding could lead to a rise in the number of Covid-19 cases in Maharashtra.
The CM said if everyone followed Covid-19 norms such as wearing masks, distancing and avoiding gatherings, there would not be a need for fresh restrictions to be imposed. “One has to be prepared for the third wave as we saw how the entire country had to suffer during the second wave, largely due to less supply of oxygen,” Thackeray said.
Thackeray said the upcoming festive days were crucial and challenging. The onus is on political parties to ensure things do not go out of control, he said.
The CM further said the “third wave of COVID-19 is at our doorsteps”.
“Kerala is seeing a spike of 30,000 cases daily. This is a danger signal and if we don’t take it seriously, Maharashtra will have to pay a heavy price,” he added.
Since the past few days, Mumbai has been reporting more than 400 new COVID-19 cases every day, as per official data. On Sunday, Maharashtra reported 4,057 coronavirus cases, which took the state’s infection tally to 64,86,174, while the death of 67 patients pushed the toll to 1,37,774, the health department said.
Oxygen in Maharashtra
Thackeray had earlier on Sunday said the easing of COVID-19 restrictions in the state would be based on the availability of oxygen and it was ”up to the people to prevent or invite a ’third wave’ of the pandemic”.
He had claimed Maharashtra was the only state which has upgraded its health infrastructure to tackle the pandemic ”like no other country has done”. ”We are only falling short of oxygen production, which takes a little longer. At present, our daily oxygen production is around 1,200 to 1,300 metric tonne which is used for industrial as well as medical purposes. For the industrial purpose, oxygen is required in steel, glass and pharma sectors. We need 150 metric tonne daily for non-COVID-19 patients and 200 metric tonne for COVID-19 patients,” he had said.
During the second wave of COVID-19, the state required 1,700 to 1,800 metric tonne oxygen daily, which it had to procure from other states, the CM said. Thackeray had said he has given instructions to increase the oxygen production in the state to 3,000 metric tonne from the present 1,400 metric tonne. ”But, that will take time. We may not get enough oxygen from other states if the number of cases there increase,” he said. The chief minister said even though the second wave of COVID-19 is ”under control”, there is a slight increase in the number of daily cases in the last few days.
With inputs from PTI.
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