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Widening gap between daily new COVID cases and recoveries: Harsh Vardhan

India contributed 22.8% of the total cases reported worldwide on April 12

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan visits AIIMS Trauma centre to visit COVID-19 patients on Friday | Twitter Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan visits AIIMS Trauma centre to visit COVID-19 patients on Friday | Twitter

"India is currently reporting the sharpest growth rate of 7.6 per cent in new COVID cases, which is 1.3 times higher than the case growth rate of 5.5 per cent reported in June 2020. This is leading to an alarming rise in daily number of active cases, which currently stands at 16,79,000," said Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Saturday. 

Presenting a snapshot of the ongoing situation at a meeting with the health ministers of 11 of the most crucial states, Vardhan said India reported its highest single day spike on April 12, 2021 which was also the highest number of daily new cases reported in the world. “India contributed 22.8 per cent of the total cases reported worldwide on April 12, 2021,” he said.

''There is also a sharp growth of 10.2 per cent in the number of deaths. The widening gap between daily new cases and daily new recoveries reflects that the infection is spreading at a much faster rate than recoveries with consistently growing active case,” said the minister.

The 11 states/UTs—Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, West Bengal, Delhi, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh—have already crossed their highest reported daily case threshold, with some districts like Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune, Nashik, Thane, Lucknow, Raipur, Ahmedabad and Aurangabad also following the same pattern. 

At the meeting which lasted for more than three hours, the minister promised the states that over 6,000 new ventilators would be made available to them in addition to the 34,228 given last year. These will be given as follows: 1121 ventilators are to be given to Maharashtra, 1,700 to Uttar Pradesh, 1,500 to Jharkhand, 1,600 to Gujarat, 152 to Madhya Pradesh and 230 to Chhattisgarh.

Vardhan also detailed the corresponding rise in health infrastructure over the past year. “From just one laboratory at the start of the pandemic, we now have 2,463 that have a combined daily testing capacity of 15 lakhs. 14,95,397 tests conducted in the last 24 hours have increased the total tests conducted to 26,88,06,123. The three-tier health infrastructure to treat COVID according to severity now includes 2,084 dedicated COVID Hospitals (of which 89 are under the Centre and the rest 1995 with states), 4,043 dedicated COVID Health Centres and 12,673 COVID Care Centres. They have 18,52,265 beds in total including the 4,68,974 beds in the Dedicated COVID Hospitals,” he said.

The state ministers raised their issues with securing supplies of medical oxygen, availability of medicines like remdesivir and vaccines, as well as their concerns over the spread of the double mutant strain. The Delhi government requested for additional beds in central government hospitals, as was done in 2020. 

Addressing the vaccine issue, Vardhan said that there was no shortage. He said the total consumption of vaccines so far (wastage included) has been approximately 12,57,18,000 doses against the 14.15 crore doses provided by the Centre to the states. About 1.58 crore doses are still available with the states while another 1,16,84,000 doses are in pipeline, to be delivered by next week. “Stocks of every small state are replenished after seven days. For big states, the time period is four days,” he added.  

He exhorted the states to plan in advance and increase COVID hospitals, oxygenated beds and other relevant infrastructure to deal with any further surge in cases. He requested the states to give special focus on the prominent 5-6 cities in their administration, map medical colleges to either these cities or adjoining districts. 

The states were asked to seek out positive cases with the onset of early symptoms so that prompt and effective treatment checks the deterioration of health in the diseased. Large containment zones for achieving community quarantine were also suggested as a strategy. The state health ministers who attended the meeting were T. S. Singh Deo (Chhattisgarh), Satyendar Jain (Delhi), Dr. K. Sudhakar (Karnataka), Dr. Prabhuram Choudhary (Madhya Pradesh), Rajesh Tope (Maharashtra), Jai Pratap Singh (Uttar Pradesh), K.K. Shailaja (Kerala), and Dr Raghu Sharma (Rajasthan). 

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