In the last 24 hours, 3,722 new cases have been reported. (File Photo)

While there were 134 deaths due to coronavirus (all-India total 2,549) and total confirmed cases reported touched 78,003, as of Thursday morning,185 patients across the country are on ventilators, 1,425 patients are in ICUs, and 1,282 require oxygen support.

In the last 24 hours, 3,722 new cases have been reported.

These figures of patients needing additional care also show that as coronavirus cases in the country have trebled over the last fortnight, the percentage of patients needing critical care has risen only marginally.

On April 29, when total active cases in the country were 21,632, these figures were 2.17 per cent admitted in Intensive Care Unit (ICU), 0.36 per cent patients on ventilators, and 1.29 per cent requiring oxygen support.

The figures until Wednesday, when the total number of active cases was 47,480, show that 3 per cent patients need ICU, 0.39 per cent are on ventilator, and 2.7 per cent on oxygen support.

The fact that these numbers have remained stable is important because one of the concerns of governments across the world in dealing with Covid-19 has been the apprehension about hospitals running out of space.

So far, 26,234 people have been cured across the country.

Data available with the Health Ministry until Wednesday show that in 900 dedicated coronavirus hospitals in the country there are 1,79,882 beds (1,60,610 isolation beds and 19,272 ICU beds) and in 2,040 dedicated Covid-19 health centres there are 1,29,689 beds (1,19,340 isolation beds and 10,349 ICU beds). The former are also equipped with ventilators while the latter have oxygen supply.

In addition, there are 8,708 quarantine centres and 5,577 Covid Care Centres with 4,93,101 beds. These are isolation facilities which are not hospital-based.

(Source: Ministry of Health data)

The Health Ministry on Thursday issued guidelines for conducting pooled testing in zero case districts, or districts that have reported cases in the past but are currently designated in the Green Zone. “A decision has been taken to use one-time RT-PCR-based pooled sampling for surveillance purposes for migrant workers in institutional quarantine facilities, international passengers in institutional quarantine facilities/hotels earmarked for quarantine and for surveillance purposes in green zones (districts with no case/no case reported in last 21 days),” the document says.

It lays down that a maximum of 25 samples can be pooled. If any such “pool” of 25 tests positive, all individual samples would then have to be tested to identify the person who is positive.

The National Centre for Disease Control has now started testing using COBAS 6800, a fully automated, high-end machine for performing real-time PCR with a high throughput of around 1,200 samples in 24 hours.

The total number of tests done so far across the country is 19,47,041.

According to the ministry, the last three days’ doubling time is 13.9 days; doubling time in the past 14 days was 11.1 days.