Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said the state will follow the Centre’s guidelines on easing restrictions, but in special cases, collectors will meet crisis management groups and take decisions. (File Photo)

Madhya Pradesh Saturday reported 73 COVID-19 cases but the number of people who recovered was more than 100, prompting the state government to claim that its fight against the pandemic was on the right track.

Also, while Indore continues to be a hotspot with over half the cases in the state, data released by the administration has shown a downward trend in percentage of cases testing positive over the past week.

While Bhopal reported six cases Saturday, Ujjain did not report a single case and Indore reported 30. So far, MP has reported 2,788 cases and 624 people have recovered. Chief Medical and Health Officer, Indore, Praveen Jadia said 115 patients were discharged from facilities in the city.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said the state will follow the Centre’s guidelines on easing restrictions, but in special cases, collectors will meet crisis management groups and take decisions. “For the first time, the number of active cases has come down. We are on the right track to defeat Corona,” he said.

Amulya Nidhi of NGO Jan Swasthya Abhiyan said the testing rate in MP was much lower than other states with high case counts. While the state has tested 602 samples per million, the figures for Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi and Rajasthan were 1,325, 1,096, 2,485 and 1,575, respectively, he said.

Meanwhile, Indore administration is spotting signs of recovery. On April 25, Indore’s case count was 1,176 after 5,594 samples were tested — 21.02 per cent tested positive. This was a dip from the 25.12 per cent on April 17. Till May 1, 1,545 out of 8,433 samples have tested positive — 18.32 per cent.

The mortality rate, as compared to April 25, has gone down from 4.84 per cent to 4.78 per cent, and recovery rate has gone up from 9.09 per cent to 14.82 per cent. If data from the last seven days is considered, 122 people recovered and the percentage of positive cases is 12.99 per cent.

Indore Commissioner Akash Tripathi said these were signs of recovery. “These results are coming from three places — flu OPDs where people with symptoms are getting themselves tested, yellow hospitals where suspected patients have been accommodated and from the survey by health teams on periphery of containment zones,” Tripathi said. “We are now giving samples to private labs to test. The rate has been fixed at Rs 2500 per test.” A senior official advised caution. “The data is encouraging, but any laxity at this point can lead to a spike.”