New Delhi: Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Dr Harsh Vardhan on Sunday said that while India sees a return to a new normal, “physical distancing is the most potent social vaccine available to us and we should ensure Do gaz ki doori while interacting with others and to limit social gatherings by opting virtual gatherings.”
The Minister also advised to travel only when absolutely necessary and not to visit crowded places to limit the exposure to infection.
Dr Vardhan stated that India’s policy perseverance coupled with aggressive and early measures through 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. The fatality rate has fallen to 3.1 per cent and the recovery rate has improved to 37.5 per cent,” he said.
He also added that as of now there are 3.1 per cent active COVID-19 patients in ICU, 0.45 per cent on ventilators and 2.7 per cent on oxygen support.
Read: Indian scientists are working to discover COVID-19 vaccine: Dr Harsh Vardhan
Dr Vardhan said that the testing capacity has increased in the country to 1,00,000 tests per day through 373 government laboratories and 152 private laboratories.
Cumulatively, 22,79,324 tests have been done so far for COVID-19, whereas, 90,094 samples were tested on Saturday.
“Today, there are eight States, UTs that have not reported any cases of COVID-19 in last 24 hours including Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Chandigarh, Ladakh, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Puducherry. Also, Daman & Diu, Sikkim, Nagaland and Lakshadweep have not reported any cases till now”, he said.
Read: Without nurses, other health workers, we will not win battle against epidemics: Vardhan
He said that as of now 916 dedicated COVID hospitals with 1,80,473 beds (Isolation beds- 1,61,169 and ICU beds- 19,304) and 2,044 dedicated COVID Health Centres with 1,28,304 beds (Isolation beds- 1,17,775 and ICU beds- 10,529) along with 9,536 quarantine centres and 6,309 COVID Care Centres with 5,64,632 beds are now available to combat COVID-19 in the country.
The Centre has provided 90.22 lakh N95 masks and 53.98 lakh Personal Protective Equipments (PPEs) to the States, UTs and Central Institutions.
He also mentioned that Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has advised some steps that can be followed to ensure food-safety during COVID-19 like washing raw fruits and vegetables in clean potable water; fully cooking the meat; use of different chopping boards and knives for raw meat and cooked food among others.
Also Read: No COVID-19 case reported in 10 states, UTs in last 24 hours: Harsh Vardhan
