Vardhan said such meetings were held with health ministers of Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha and also West Bengal as part of his strategy to have quality discussion with them on combating coronavirus.

He said West Bengal was represented by senior officials from the Health Department while in other states their Health Ministers were present for the virtual meeting.

Vardhan gave a macro view of the national Covid-19 situation to Vijayabaskar and Health Secretary Beela Rajesh, stating there were total 56,342 corona cases in the country, of which 1,886 patients had died.

He said the fatality rate is roughly 3.3 per cent.

A total of 16,540 Covid-19 patients were cured and discharged from hospitals across the country.

As many as 821 dedicated Covid-19 hospitals were set up in India, with over 1.50 lakh beds in intensive care units (ICU) and isolation wards.

Vardhan also said there are 1,898 Covid-19 health centres with about 1.19 lakh beds and 7,608 quarantine centres across the country.

Vardhan said a total of 14.40 lakh persons have been tested for coronavirus infection. The coronavirus test labs in the country were 453 (332 government and 121 private).

According to him, at an average about 95,000 samples are tested per day across the nation.

The Union Minister said that Vijayabaskar and Rajesh would appreciate the fact as they themselves are qualified doctors.

Pointing out to Tamil Nadu's Covid-19 numbers, Vardhan said the state has 5,409 cases spread over 37 districts.

He expressed his happiness that Tamil Nadu has 52 labs for testing samples from suspected patients.

Vardhan said the state has 29,395 Covid-19 beds and 2,209 ICU beds.