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Covid-19 situation especially serious in Ahmedabad, Surat, Thane, Hyderabad, Chennai: MHA
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Doubling rate of Covid-19 cases now stands at 10 days, says Health Ministry
India on Friday saw its Covid-19 case tally rise to 23,452, according to the latest update from Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Here are ten things you need to know about the pandemic outbreak in the country.
India’s fresh Covid-19 cases jumped by 1,752, which is the highest 24-hour jump the country ever witnessed. The number of active cases rose by 1,226 to 17,915. There have been 37 deaths in the last 24 hours, taking the country’s total death toll to 723. Maharashtra continues to be the most affected state with 6,430 cases and 283 fatalities. Covid-19 situation especially serious in Ahmedabad, Surat, Thane, Hyderabad, Chennai, said Ministry of Home Affairs on Friday. Apart from six Inter-Ministerial Central Teams (IMCT) constituted earlier, Home Ministry today constituted four additional IMCTs, each headed by an Additional Secretary – level officer, to Ahmedabad, Surat, Hyderabad & Chennai, said an official “Doubling rate of Covid-19 cases now stands at 10 days. The lockdown decision was timely as the around 23,000 cases in India today could have been 73,000,” said Dr V.K. Paul, Niti Aayog member and Chairman of Empowered Group 1.
While Gujarat and Delhi have more than 2,000 cases, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh are inching towards the unenviable benchmark with 1,964 and 1,852 cases, respectively. “No new case of COVID-19 reported from 80 districts in last 14 days. We are implementing community surveillance at district, state levels to check community spread of coronavirus,” said the Health Ministry officials. Number of recoveries rose to 4,813. “Recovery rate in the country stands at 20.57%,” said Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Health Ministry. Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Thursday said faulty antibody testing kits will be returned to the respective countries, whether it is China or any other nation. Dr Vardhan and MoS Health and Family Welfare, Ashwini Choubey, held a meeting via video conferencing with state health ministers today, to review the actions on COVID-19 management.
While addressing the ministers, Dr Vardhan said, “Faulty antibody testing kits will be returned if they don’t work properly, whether they belong to China or any other country. We have not paid for the kits yet.”
“Wherever there is a need, we have also sent our senior officers to support you, they are not sent as monitors. They are there for hand-holding and cooperation so we get feedback on how to further extend help,” the Union Health Minister told states.
