Recovery rate 34.06 pc, doubling rate improved: Health Minister

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Friday said that the total recovery rate of COVID-19 patients in the country has been recorded at 34.06% and the Doubling Rate improved from 3.4 days in the pre-lockdown week to 12.9 days in the last week.

During the 15th meeting of high-level Group of Ministers (GoM) on COVID-19 held here, the Minister said that 1,685 corona patients were cured in the last 24 hours, which denoted the recovery rate of 34.06%.

Reading the COVID-19 situation globally and in the country, the Minister said: "The total coronavirus positive cases worldwide stand at 42,48,389 with 2,94,046 deaths and the fatality rate is pegged at 6.92%. In India, the total positive cases are 81,970, with 2,649 deaths and a fatality rate of 3.23%. So far, a total of 27,920 people have been cured."

The GoM held in-depth deliberations on containment strategy and management aspects of COVID-19, as well as measures taken by the Centre and various states.

The GoM was informed by the officials that there are 30 municipal areas that account for 79% of India's COVID-19 case load.

The GoM also discussed that the focus of COVID-19 management strategy needs to be on the states with the highest numbers of confirmed cases and the fatalities, and on treatment and case fatality management, for which timely detection of infection and contact tracing were the best way forward.

The GOM also discussed the challenges before various states/UTs arising due to migrant labourers returning home and the returnees from abroad.

The Minister told the GoM that a total of 8,694 facilities comprising 919 dedicated COVID hospitals, 2,036 COVID Health Centres and 5,739 COVID Care Centres with a total of 2,77,429 beds for severe and critical cases, 29,701 ICU beds and 5,15,250 isolation beds in care centres are available.

Also, as on date, 18,855 ventilators are now available to combat COVID-19 in the country.

The Centre has also provided 84.22 lakh N95 masks and 47.98 lakh Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to the states, UTs and central institutions.

He said that the domestic manufacturers have the capacity to produce nearly 3 lakh PPE and N-95 masks each per day.

Dr Balram Bhargava, Director General of ICMR, said about COBAS 6800, a fully automated, high-end machine has been installed at the NCDC for performing real-time PCR testing for COVID-19 to test 1,200 samples in 24 hours.

He also said that the corona testing capacity has increased in the country to 1,00,000 tests per day through 509 government and private laboratories.Nearly 20 lakh cumulative tests have been conducted in the country.

The GoM attendees included Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep S. Puri, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, and MoS Home Nityananda Rai.