The average doubling rate of Covid-19 cases in the country is 9.1 days as of now and from Friday 8 am to Saturday 8 am, India recorded a six per cent growth in new cases, which is the lowest daily growth rate recorded since the country crossed 100 cases, the government said on Saturday.
The 13th meeting of the High-level Group of Ministers (GoM) on Covid-19 was held under the chairpersonship of Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Saturday.
The GOM was briefed on state-wise details of dedicated Covid-19 hospitals, along with the adequacy of isolation beds and wards, PPE kits, N95 masks, drugs, ventilators and oxygen cylinders, among others, the health ministry said.
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The GoM was informed that domestic manufacturers, which were identified earlier, have already started producing PPE kits and masks, and that an adequate quantity of the same was available.
“As on date, more than one lakh PPE kits and N95 masks are being manufactured every day in the country. There are, at present, 104 domestic manufacturers of PPE and three of N95 masks in the country,” the ministry said in a statement.
In addition, production of ventilators vide domestic manufacturers has also started and orders have been placed for more than 59,000 units through nine manufacturers, it added.
“The GoM was apprised that as of now, the death rate is around 3.1 per cent while the recovery rate is more than 20 per cent, which is comparatively better than most of the countries and may be taken as a positive effect of the lockdown in the country, along with the cluster management and containment strategy.
Meanwhile, the death toll due to COVID-19 rose to 779 and the number of cases climbed to 24,942 in the country on Saturday, registering an increase of 56 deaths and 1,490 cases since Friday evening, according to the Union health ministry
The 56 deaths were the maximum reported in the country in a span of 24 hours, the ministry said.
The number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 18,953, while 5,209 people have been cured and discharged, and one patient has migrated, it added.
“So far, around 20.88 per cent people have recovered in the country,” the ministry said.
The total number of cases includes 111 foreign nationals.
Of the 56 deaths reported since Friday evening, 18 were in Maharashtra, 15 in Gujarat, nine in Madhya Pradesh, three each in Delhi and West Bengal, two each in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh and one each in Punjab and Kerala.
Of the total 779 COVID-19 deaths, Maharashtra accounts for the highest number of 301 fatalities, followed by Gujarat (127), Madhya Pradesh (92), Delhi (53), Andhra Pradesh (31) and Rajasthan (27).
The death toll reached 26 in Uttar Pradesh as well as in Telangana, 22 in Tamil Nadu, while Karnataka and West Bengal have reported 18 deaths each, the ministry said.
Punjab has registered 17 fatalities so far, Jammu and Kashmir five, Kerala four, while Jharkhand and Haryana have recorded three COVID-19 deaths each.
Bihar has reported two coronavirus deaths, while Meghalaya, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha and Assam have reported a fatality each, according to the ministry data
There has been a lag in the Union health ministry figures, compared to the number of deaths announced by the states, which officials attribute to procedural delays in assigning the cases to individual states.
According to the health ministry data updated in the evening, the highest number of confirmed cases in the country is from Maharashtra at 6,817, followed by Gujarat (2,815), Delhi (2,514), Rajasthan (2,034), Madhya Pradesh (1,952) and Uttar Pradesh (1,778).
The number of COVID-19 cases has gone up to 1,755 in Tamil Nadu, 1,061?in Andhra Pradesh and 984 in Telangana.
The number of cases has risen to 571 in West Bengal,?489 in Karnataka, 454 in Jammu and Kashmir, 451 in Kerala,?298 in Punjab and 272 in Haryana.
Bihar has reported 228 coronavirus cases, while Odisha has 94. Fifty-nine people have been infected with the virus in Jharkhand and 48 in Uttarakhand.
Himachal Pradesh has 40 cases, while Chhattisgarh and Assam have registered 36 infections each.
Chandigarh has 28 cases, while there are 27 COVID-19 patients in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Twenty coronavirus cases have been reported from Ladakh, 12 from Meghalaya, while Goa and Puducherry have registered seven COVID-19 cases each.
Manipur and Tripura have two coronavirus patients each, while Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh have reported a case each.
“Forty-nine cases are being assigned to states for contact tracing. Our figures are being reconciled with that of the ICMR,” the ministry said on its website.
State-wise distribution is subject to further verification and reconciliation, it added.
