Prime Minister Narendra Modi had reviewed the situation with top officials on Sunday

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a meeting on April 8 with Chief Ministers of all the states and Union Territories to discuss the current status of the Covid-19 pandemic in the nation along with issues related to vaccination via video conferencing, the Prime Minister's Office said on Monday.

The decision to hold a meeting comes as the Covid-19 cases in India are on a surge. Over 1 Lakh (1,03,558) new cases were registered in the last 24 hours.

Eight States including Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab have shown a steep rise in the COVID daily new cases. 81.90% of the new cases are reported from these states.
Maharashtra has reported the highest daily new cases at 57,074 (55.11%) followed by Chhattisgarh with 5,250 while Karnataka reported 4,553 new cases.
This is also the second meeting in five days that the Prime Minister is going to chair in order to assess the current situation with connection to the surge in the number of cases.

The Prime Minister during Sunday's meeting decided to send officials to Maharashtra, Punjab and Chhattisgarh, three states which continue to report a surge in the number of daily cases, to address the issues related to the recent spike in infections.

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan is also scheduled to chair a meeting with health ministers of 11 states and Union Territories on Tuesday, as reported by the news agency ANI.

Meanwhile, in a significant development in the fight against COVID-19, the cumulative number of COVID19 vaccine doses administered in the country has crossed the 7.9 Crore mark.

Cumulatively, 7,91,05,163 vaccine doses have been administered through 12,31,148 sessions, as per the provisional report till 7 am. These include 90,09,353 HCWs (1st dose), 53,43,493 HCWs (2nd dose), 97,37,850 FLWs (1st dose) and 41,33,961 FLWs (2nd Dose) and 4,99,31,635 (1st Dose) and 9,48,871 (2nd dose) beneficiaries aged more than 45 years.

As on Day-79 of the vaccination drive (4th April), 16,38,464 vaccine doses were given. Out of which, 15,40,676 beneficiaries were vaccinated across 21,508 sessions for 1st dose and 97,788 beneficiaries received 2nd dose of vaccine.

India started its vaccination drive on January 16 with priority given to all healthcare and frontline workers in the first phase.

The second phase started on March 1 where doses were administered to people above the age of 60 and those between 45 and 59 years with specific comorbidities.

From April 1, the government started vaccinating all people above 45 years.