A Group of Ministers (GOM) led by union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Friday held a meeting to discuss the novel coronavirus situation as over 55,000 fresh cases were registered on Friday, which is highest so far in a single day. There were 779 new fatalities as per the union health ministry and the country's overall cases are now close to 17 lakh.
While the union health ministry data as of Friday morning said India so far had 16, 38, 870 total cases and 35, 747 deaths, COVID19India.org put these figures by evening at 16, 69, 264 total cases and 36, 076 deaths. The country has about 5.5 lakh active infected persons under treatment while over 10.5 lakh have been cured.
The health minister maintained that India has one of the lowest Case Fatality Rates globally, which is steadily decreasing and the country has ramped up its testing big time and a record 6,42,588 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours. This has taken the cumulative tests to more than 1.88 crore.
“India has achieved the milestone of more than 1 million recoveries which has taken the Recovery Rate to 64.54%. This shows that the active cases under medical supervision are only 33.27% or approximately 1/3rd of total positive cases. India’s Case Fatality Rate is also progressively reducing and currently stands at 2.18%, one of the lowest globally,” the minister said in the meeting. This was the 19th meeting of the GoM since it was formed in February when three cases of COVID-19 were detected in the country.
While speaking on the severity of cases in India, Dr. Harsh Vardhan stated that, “Out of the total Active Cases, only 0.28% patients are on Ventilators, 1.61% Patients needed ICU support and 2.32% are on Oxygen support”.
The overall recovery rate for India is now 64.54% with the highest recovery rate being recorded by Delhi at 89.18%, followed by Haryana (79.82%). Karnataka has the lowest recovery rate of 39.36%.
Twelve states -- Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat, Telangana, Bihar, Rajasthan and Assam – have the highest growth rate. Maharashtra again has recorded over 10,000 fresh cases in a day while Jammu-Kashmir and Himachal too have started reporting a large number of cases now.
The World Health Organisation has said that the spike in coronavirus transmission in several countries were being driven by young people "letting down their guard".
Meanwhile, Delhi will conduct the next round of sero-prevalence survey from August 1 to 5 to analyse the COVID-19 situation in the city. Delhi on Friday recorded 1195 fresh cases of novel coronavirus and 27 deaths, taking the tally in the city to over 1.35 lakh, while the death toll from the disease climbed to 3,963.
