India on Friday registered 11,109 daily Covid cases a day after the country registered over 10,000 cases amid a spike in infections. The active caseload stands at 49,622. As the surge continued, Maharashtra on Thursday logged 1,086 new Covid-19 cases, a slight dip from the previous day as Delhi saw another spike with 1,527 fresh cases and two deaths. Meanwhile, India reported a single-day surge of 10,158 coronavirus cases, the highest in nearly eight months on Thursday.
Amid a surge in Covid cases, Delhi Education Minister Atishi said the government is reviewing the situation and school guidelines will be issued soon.
Addressing a press conference, Atishi said, "Our government is reviewing the Covid situation and guidelines will be issued to all the schools in this regard very soon."
This comes a day after Delhi's single-day Covid-19 cases count breached the 1,000-mark for the first time in over seven months on Wednesday, with the national capital reporting 1,149 fresh cases and one fatality.
"Since the Covid situation is deteriorating again, we have taken precautionary measures beforehand. Masks have been made compulsory for students and social distancing norms have also been implemented," chairperson of the National Progressive Schools' conference Sudha Acharya told news agency PTI.
The current surge in infections is being driven by XBB.1.16, a sub variant of Omicron. While Omicron and its sub-lineages continue to be the dominant variant in India, most of them have little or no significant transmissibility, disease severity or immune escape, officials said.A
Notably, the prevalence of XBB.1.16 increased from 21.6 per cent in February this year to 35.8 per cent in March. However, no evidence of an increase in hospitalisation or mortality has been reported, officials added.
As the country witnessed a surge in cases, mock drills were conducted across hospitals in Delhi to tackle the surge.
The mock drill conducted was part of a nationwide exercise to take stock of the hospitals' preparedness to tackle the surge in Covid cases. Officials had already announced that both public and private facilities are expected to participate in the exercise conducted on April 10 and 11.
Meanwhile, health officials on Wednesday said that Covid-19 in India is moving towards the endemic stage and the infections may keep rising for the next 10-12 days after which they are likely to subside.