Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Monday, while holding a virtual meeting with Health Ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Punjab, Rajasthan, Telangana and West Bengal, said that India has performed better than “any of the big developed countries” in the world.
“The whole country worked together by following the same strategy together. We have seen a lot of phases in this journey of 10 months. The first case was reported in Kerala followed by various other developments,” said Dr Harsh Vardhan. “The entire country followed the bold manner in which the lockdown was imposed under the leadership of PM Modi. Later, the unlock process was also implemented effectively. When we analyse the performance of our country, it seems India has performed better than any of the big developed countries in the world,” he added.
The Union Health Minister continued saying, India’s recovery rate has reached 92.56 per cent as of Monday morning. “There was a surge in cases one or two months back. India’s active cases used to hover around one lakh. Now the number of active cases has come down. Out of the five lakh active cases in India currently, many people are on the road to recovery,” said Dr Vardhan. “We hope we can get the vaccine at any time after the new year starts. After that arrangements need to be made to disseminate vaccine among 20 to 30 crore people. We need to make a list for that, vaccine centres and vaccinations as well. The team of vaccinations needs to be lined up and trained for the same,” he added.
India has managed to bring the new Covid-19 cases below the 50,000-mark for consecutive days, with 45,903 people testing positive for the disease in the past 24 hours, continuing with a downward trend, as per the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) on Monday.
“The trend of recoveries outnumbered new positive cases for the 37th day with 48,405 discharges in the last 24 hours, taking the total tally to 79,17,373. The recovery rate presently stands at 92.56 per cent. This trend has continued to shrink the active caseload of India, which is presently at 5.09 lakh,” as per an official statement from the MoHFW. The gap between the recovered and active cases steadily widened to 74,07,700 and India’s cumulative positivity rate dropped to 7.19 per cent on Monday.
A total of 79 per cent of the new recovered cases are concentrated in 10 states/Union Territories (UTs). Maharashtra reported the maximum number of single-day recovery with 8,232 new discharges in the last 24 hours. As many as 6,853 people recovered in Kerala, followed by 6,069 recoveries in Delhi.
Fatalities also continued to decrease, with 490 deaths reported in the last 24 hours. “Of the 490 new deaths, 10 states/UTs account for nearly 81 per cent. More than a quarter (25.51 per cent) of the mortalities, 125 fatalities, was reported in the last 24 hours from Maharashtra. Delhi and West Bengal follow with 77 and 59 new deaths respectively,” as per the official statement.
