Context: The Council of Ministers met on Friday to discuss the situation arising out of the second wave of COVID-19 in the country. The Council of Ministers meeting noted that the present pandemic crisis is ‘once in a century crisis’ and has thrown a big challenge for the world.

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi said all arms of the Government are working unitedly & rapidly to deal with the situation.
• He also urged the Ministers to stay in touch with people of their respective regions, help them and keep getting their feedback. He stressed upon the need to ensure that issues at the local level are promptly identified and addressed.
• On Thursday, the Centre had directed all states and UTs to go for intensive and local containment measures in districts with high caseload.
• Granting legal force to an April 25 advisory issued by the Health Ministry, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued an order under the Disaster Management Act for its immediate implementation by states and Union Territories.
• As per the advisory, states and UTs had been asked to identify districts where either the positivity rate is more than 10 % or where bed occupancy is more than 60%. Districts fulfilling any of these two criteria should be considered for taking intensive containment measures.
• The order further stated that national directives for Covid management, which require wearing of face masks and social distancing in public places, and encouraging work from home, shall continue to be strictly followed.
• All District Magistrates are required to strictly enforce implementation of these measures.

On The Big Picture today, we will analyse with experts the containment measures, how effective are they in breaking the chain of transmission, will they help flatten the curve of the second wave which has hit us severely and what more immediate measures would be required on part of each one of us to fight the pandemic.