STATE TIMES NEWS
New Delhi: Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan reviewed on Monday the COVID-19 situation in nine states, including West Bengal, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, and expressed concern that the winters and the festive season could potentially threaten the gains made against the viral infection.
Interacting with the state health ministers and principal secretaries or additional chief secretaries of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Telangana, Punjab, Haryana and Kerala, he stressed that India has the highest recovery rate and one of the lowest fatality rate, globally.
Vardhan informed the meeting that of the total active cases in the country, only 0.44 per cent were on ventilator support, 2.47 per cent in ICU and just 4.13 per cent occupied oxygen-supported beds, according to a Health Ministry statement.
J&K’s COVID-19 tally reaches 99,352 with 460 new cases, death toll rises to 1,542
Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir on Monday recorded 460 new COVID-19 cases pushing the infection tally to 99,352, while nine fatalities in a day took the death toll to 1,542, officials said.
Of the fresh cases, 153 were from Jammu division and 307 from Kashmir Valley. Srinagar district recorded the highest of 161 cases, followed by 99 in Jammu, they said.
There were 5,565 active cases in the union Territory, while 92,245 patients have recovered so far, the officials said.
Of the nine deaths reported in the Union Territory, one was from Jammu division and eight from the Kashmir Valley.
He, however, said the nine states and some districts there have been reporting a rise in the number of COVID-19 cases, high average daily cases on a weekly average, decline in testing, high rate of mortality within the first 24 or 48 or 72 hours of hospitalisation, high doubling rate and higher death among the vulnerable population.
Vardhan said the trajectory of the disease was being monitored personally by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“The prime minister has held intense discussions with all chief ministers and Head of UTs. His latest address was only of 10 minutes but had the important message of continued adherence to COVID-appropriate behaviour and its transformation to a Jan Andolan (people’s movement).”
Sharing the nation’s journey in the fight against the pandemic, he said the number of laboratories increased from one in January to 2,074 now and the testing capacity has increased to 1.5 million daily.
The Union health minister also spoke about the increased number of general, oxygenated and ICU beds at each level of COVID care hierarchy.
Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan requested all States to focus on 10 key areas to contain the infecton and gain an upper hand over its trajectory.
These are increasing testing, targeted testing at market-places, workplaces, religious congregations which could have the potential to become super-spreaders, increasing the share of RT-PCR in testing, compulsory testing of symptomatic RAT negatives, completion of contact tracing within the first 72 hours, tracing of an average of 10-15 contacts per new case detected.
National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) Director Sujeet K Singh apprised everybody on the trajectory of the coronavirus disease and the public health response efforts in the states.
The State Health Ministers shared a brief snapshot of the actions taken for containment, surveillance and treatment of COVID-19 cases.
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