Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the nation on Thursday at 8 PM during which he will talk about issues relating to COVID-19 and the efforts to combat it, the prime minister’s office announced on Wednesday.
The PMO also said the prime minister chaired a high-level meeting on Wednesday to review the ongoing efforts to contain COVID-19 and consider ways to further strengthen India’s preparedness.
“PM @narendramodi emphasised on actively engaging with individuals, local communities and organisations in chalking out mechanisms to fight the COVID-19 menace. He also urged officials and technical experts to deliberate on the steps to be taken next,” one of the related PMO tweets said.
The prime minister also took the opportunity to thank all those at the “forefront” of the fight against the deadly disease that has take three lives in the country so far and infected 151 people, said another PMO tweet.
“Shri @narendramodi expressed gratitude to all those at the forefront of combating COVID-19 including the various State Governments, medical fraternity, paramedical staff, armed and paramilitary forces, those associated with aviation sector, municipal staff and others,” the PMO tweet said.
India saw 14 fresh novel coronavirus infections on Wednesday, taking the total in the country to 151 as West Bengal and Pondicherry reported their first cases while other states imposed stricter restrictions even as leaders around the world pushed for more drastic measures to contain the pandemic that has now surpassed 2,00,000 cases and 8,000 deaths globally.
The development comes as the Union government late on Tuesday night decided to engage private laboratories in testing samples of suspected Covid-19 cases to increase the country’s capacity for dealing with a possible larger outbreak.
The government also announced postponing of the ongoing CBSE and university examinations to after March 31.