LIVE: PM Modi, Amit Shah express grief over Nashik incident, Maharashtra orders probe
Eleven patients on ventilator support at a hospital in Maharashtra’s Nashik died due to suspected oxygen leakage at a storage tank on Wednesday. Claiming that these deaths could be linked to the interrupted supply of oxygen due to the leakage Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope said a probe has been ordered into the incident.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed anguish at the loss of lives and called the incident heart wrenching. Union Home Minister Amit Shah too condoled the loss of lives in Nashik’s Dr Zakir Hussain Hospital.
In other news, several states have imposed partial or complete lockdown to control the spread of the virus. The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government led by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray is expected to announce a complete lockdown in the state from Wednesday (April 21, 2021) in order to ”break the chain of coronavirus infections.”
Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and Lt Governor Anil Baijal to hold a meeting at 11 am today. Issue of Oxygen supply, COVID cases and deaths to be taken up in the meet.
According to the sources, the MVA government may announce a two-week lockdown in the state as the existing ‘break the chain’ guidelines aren’t proving to be efficient. The national capital went into a six-day lockdown on Monday (April 19) amid the deteriorating COVID-19 situation in the city. Majority of private labs in the national capital were forced to stop collecting swab samples even from testing centres for at least two days after the overwhelming increase.
Meanwhile, India registered 2,59,170 new COVID-19 cases and 1,761 deaths in the last 24 hours, the data by the Union Health Ministry showed on Tuesday morning.
