India was facing a calamitous situation due to the second Covid-19 wave, and the Modi Government had proved to be “grossly negligent” on the health front, as well as, on giving relief to people during the economic crisis.

Stating this, CPI (M) journal People’s Democracy said today that 4th April had seen the breaching of the one lakh mark in daily cases with 103,709 cases recorded. Three days later, on 7th April, the count reached the highest so far of 126,260 new cases – the highest daily count in the world. The death rate was also mounting.

“To say that the government was unprepared for this surge is an understatement. On the contrary, the Modi government was behaving as if the worst was over in January and confident that the economic recovery was well underway,” the editorial said. “The way in which the government has formulated its vaccination policy is also contradictory and confusing,” the party said. So far two vaccines have been approved for emergency use — AstraZeneca’s Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin.

The regulatory body had still not cleared the Russian vaccine Sputnik V which was used in 35 countries, but awaited approval for manufacturing in India, the editorial said. “The supply of vaccine is already falling short with stocks rapidly depleting in States where the surge is most. This is at a time when people above 45 are being vaccinated from April 1. The failure to plan and execute a scaled-up vaccination programme is glaring,” the CPI (M) editorial said.

The Centre should also immediately provide money for the Centrally-sponsored scheme – Atmanirbhar Swasthya Bharat Yojana – which is meant to develop capacities in primary, secondary and tertiary health system and other public health facilities. Though the scheme is to incur expenditure of Rs 64,180 crores over six years, no allocation was made for it in the budget, the party said.

Fearing lockdown, migrants leaving Gujarat: Fearing another lockdown in the wake of a sudden spike in Covid cases in Gujarat, migrant workers and their families have started leaving Surat and Ahmedabad, two of the state’s most severely affected cities.

However, government officials on Thursday claimed the number of those leaving was very low and people cannot be stopped from moving from one place to another.