There were 4970 COVID19 cases and 134 deaths in the last 24 hours; total is now 101139
India races past the one lakh mark in Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID19) cases with 4970 fresh cases taking the total to 101139 cases, including 3163 deaths. There have been 134 deaths in the past 24 hours.
The government though has maintained that India’s fatality rate is much lower than the world average. In a statement the ministry of health said: “In terms of confirmed cases per lakh population, India has so far about 7.1 cases per lakh population vis a vis approx. 60 cases per lakh population for the world as a whole.” ICMR has currently tested 23,02,792 samples in the country. With roughly 93,139 positive cases in the country, the positivity rate is four per cent.
18,855 ventilators available to combat COVID-19 in the country. The Centre has also provided 84.22 lakh N95 masks and 47.98 lakh Personal Protective Equipments (PPEs) to the States/ UTs / Central Institutions.
While going past a lakh cases is a bit of a notional landmark, the worrying thing is that the country is currently on a more steep trajectory than what the Centre had shared with states some time back so that they could stay prepared. That had shown India going to 65000 on May 15 and to 1,65000 on May 31. On May 15 the actual figure was 81970. With a doubling time of about 14 days, the May 31 projection too could be breached.
As on May 15, there were, across the country, a total of 8,694 facilities comprising of 919 dedicated COVID hospitals, 2,036 COVID Health Centres and 5,739 COVID Care Centres with a total of 2,77,429 beds for severe and critical cases, 29,701 ICU beds and 5,15,250 isolation beds in care centres, are available. On that date there were 18,855 ventilators available to combat COVID-19 in the country.
The Centre has also provided 84.22 lakh N95 masks and 47.98 lakh Personal Protective Equipments (PPEs) to the States/ UTs / Central Institutions. GoM was also informed that domestic manufacturers have reached the production capacity of nearly 3 lakh PPEs per day and about 3 lakh N-95 masks per day which is sufficient to meet the requirement of the country in the near future. In addition, manufacturing of ventilators by domestic manufacturers has also started and orders have been placed.