Key points :
- Rajesh Bhushan, Secretary, Union Health Ministry announced that India’s Covid-19 recovery rate had crossed the 80 percent mark.
- The Secretary said Covid-19 testing in Punjab needed to be amped up.
- The Secretary also reported that oxygen transport was being facilitated across the country with no hindrance in intrastate or interstate transport of oxygen
India on Tuesday reported the highest rate of coronavirus recoveries in the world, which has crossed the 80 per cent-mark, said Union Health Ministry.
Rajesh Bhushan, Secretary, Union Health Ministry addressed the Health Ministry press briefing on the COVID-19 situation, saying, “We get swayed by the narrative that India has over 50 lakh cases, but we forget that nearly 45 lakh people have already recovered. India has the highest recoveries, 44.9 lakh in the world. India contributes 17.7 per cent share in the total COVID-19 cases (globally). However, in terms of recovered cases, India shares 19.5 per cent of the total recovered cases (globally).”
Mr. Bhushan announced that India’s recovery rate is over 80 per cent and over one lakh recoveries have been registered in the last 24 hours. “We have conducted 6.5 crore tests while 12 lakh tests were conducted on a single day.”
“One of the major reasons for these developments is that India was able to detect coronavirus before, isolate early and hospitalise seamlessly. All this has been made possible because of an exponential increase in COVID-19 testing infrastructure in the country,” said Mr Bhushan adding, “Around one crore tests were conducted till July 7 in the country. The journey between one crore tests to three crore tests took 27 days. During this, the number of labs was increased from 1,100 to 1,300. Till September 8, India had conducted five crore tests (cumulative figures). Today we have 1,776 labs both in the public and private sectors. This is a huge achievement.”
Mr Bhushan stated that COVID-19 testing in Punjab needs to be amped up and then addressed the topic of oxygen availability saying, “There is no hindrance in the transportation of oxygen movement (interstate and intra-state both). Oxygen tanker can move during day time within city limits. An Inter-ministerial Control Group has been created to monitor oxygen facility in real-time.” “States have to create a control room for oxygen facility. Micro-level management at the hospital level has to be looked after. What is the projected demand for oxygen, further plannings also have to be checked,” he further added.
“We have to chase the virus. The facility of beds availability needs to be put in the public domain. Instill confidence in people. New cases are being reported from a few states. We have sent our central teams to such places. PM Modi will also keep a watch on it,” he said.
On Wednesday morning 9 am, the country recorded 83,347 cases of the novel coronavirus in the 24 hours ending 9 am Wednesday making the total number of cases in the country 5,646,011. The fatality rate is 1.60 per cent. At present,India has 9,68,377 active cases and as many as 45,87,614 people have been treated and discharged.
