The central government on Thursday, August 26,  said the months of September and October will be critical in pandemic management and warned that festivals should be celebrated in adherence with COVID-19-appropriate behavior. Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan reiterated that the country is still in the midst of the second wave.

He said, "We are still in the midst of the second surge of COVID-19 in our country. The second surge has not yet concluded. It is not over and therefore, we have to maintain all necessary precautions, particularly in light of our experience that after every festival we see a spike."
In addition,  ICMR Director General Balram Bhargava said vaccines are disease-modifying and not disease preventing so it is very important to continue the use of masks even after vaccination. He added,
"The coming months of Sept and October are crucial for us because we would be celebrating a few festivals. Thus festivals have to be celebrated with Covid-appropriate behavior."

The government said 41 districts in India were reporting a COVID-19 weekly positivity rate of more than 10 percent. Alarmingly,  58.4 percent of the total COVID-19 cases last week were reported from Kerala. "Kerala is the only state reporting over 1 lakh active COVID-19 cases, while four states have 10,000 to 1 lakh active cases and 31 states have less than 10,000 active cases," it said.

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