As India’s COVID2019 cases continued to touch new highs every day, health secretary Preeti Sudan has told states to demarcate zones on their own
India continued its trend of daily highs in cases of the Novel coronavirus Disease (COVID2019) with 5242 fresh cases being reported in the last 24 hours. There were 157 deaths, even as at the total inched closer to the one lakh mark. Currently there are 96169 cases in the country.
Meanwhile in a late night communication, the ministry of health left the actual act of “zoning” into red orange and green based on the number of cases and other parameters, to the states. It merely defined the broad criteria that should be used to define these zones.
In her letter to states on Sunday, health secretary Preeti Sudan wrote: “States may categorise districts/municipal corporations as red/orange/green zones. States may, however, also choose to categorize a sub division/ward or any other appropriate administrative unit as red/orange/green zone after detailed analysis at their end, duly taking into consideration the geographical spread of cases, contacts and their zone of influence in terms of disease spread.”
Zoning parameters – total number of active cases, the active cases per lakh population, the doubling rate over a seven day period, case fatality ratio, tests per lakh population and the sample positivity rate
Among the parameters that have been laid down for zoning are – the total number of active cases, the active cases per lakh population, the doubling rate over a seven day period, case fatality ratio, tests per lakh population and the sample positivity rate. For each of these parameters a “critical” and a “desirable” level have been defined.
Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister of Health & Family Welfare said: “Our policy perseverance coupled with aggressive and early measures through a strong leadership have shown encouraging results. While the doubling time in the past 14 days was 11.5, it has improved to 13.6 in the last three days”. He added that the fatality rate has fallen to 3.1% and the recovery rate has improved to 37.5%. He also added that (as of yesterday) there are 3.1% active COVID-19 patients in ICU, 0.45% on ventilators and 2.7% on oxygen support.
