New Delhi: With eight percent increase in fresh Covid-19 infections in the country, the Centre on Saturday decided to deploy multi-disciplinary teams to 10 States identified with surge in Omicron numbers, apart from continued rise in Covid-19 cases and slow vaccination pace.

These Central teams will help add teeth to the efforts of the States and District Administrations for management of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Mizoram, Karnataka, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Punjab will see these teams stationed in the State for 3 to 5 days, said the Ministry of Health in an official statement.

“The teams will specifically look into contact tracing, surveillance, containment operations, vaccination process, besides availability of hospital beds, sufficient logistics, ambulance, ventilators, medical oxygen,” it added.

The Ministry has also asked the teams to assess the situation, suggest remedial actions and submit report every evening by 7 pm.

The dictate comes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a meeting on Thursday to review the Covid-19 situation in the country. Attended by top officials from the Health Ministry, Home Ministry and other Ministries and Departments, the meeting was held when Omicron number crossed 300 in the country.

On Saturday, with 415 cases of the new highly transmissible variant, the country saw restrictions in various States as the year-end celebrations kicked in with the Christmas festivities.

As of Dec. 25, Maharashtra has recorded a maximum of 108 Omicron cases, followed by Delhi 79, Gujarat 43, Telangana 38, Kerala 37, Tamil Nadu 34 and Karnataka 31 among 10 other States.