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New Delhi: As the country battles the second wave of Covid-19, the government Thursday said the virus may emerge again and so preparations have to be made at the national level in collaboration with states, infrastructure needs to be ramped up while curbs and appropriate behaviour must be followed.

Dismissing allegations that the government was unaware of the intensity of the second wave, NITI Aayog member (health) Dr V K Paul said, “We kept warning again and again from this platform that the second wave of Covid-19 will come.

“It was said that the sero-positivity is 20%, 80% of the population is still vulnerable and that virus has not gone anywhere and other countries were also witnessing a resurge.”

At a press conference, Paul said, “The prime minister had conveyed the country about the emerging second wave on March 17 without creating panic and had said that we have to fight it.” “Was such a peak expected,” he said, “well, no modelling can predict the size of a peak as the unexpected behaviour virus is well known.”

“So peak will come, the virus can again emerge, we know. So preparations have to be made at country level in collaboration with states, infrastructure has to be ramped up, containment measures have to be implemented and COVID appropriate behaviour has to be followed. “We had not created panic… other countries have faced multiple peaks after all it’s a pandemic,” he said. He said it is the nature of the disease that it will ultimately go to villages.

This epidemiology is well known, Paul said as he urged people to follow COVID appropriate behaviour and embrace vaccination.

Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry Lav Agarwal said that plateauing in daily new COVID-19 cases and a slight decline positivity rate have been recorded in the country over the past three days, but added 10 states still have a positivity rate of more than 25 per cent which was “worrisome trend”.

He said as many as 12 states have more than 1 lakh active COVID-19 cases, while 24 states have more than 15% case positivity rate.

“There are 10 states –Goa, Puducherry, West Bengal, Karntaka, Haryana, Rajasthan, Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha where the COVID-19 case positivity rate is more than 25% while there are eight states including Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Kerala where it is more than 20%, which is a worrisome trend,” he said.

He, however, said the number of districts with week-on week rise in COVID-19 tests, yet decline in positivity rate has increased from 125 in April 22-28 to 338 between May 6 and 12.