As confirmed Covid-19 cases in India inched towards the 3.5- lakh mark, many States, including those having high disease burden such as Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, reached an agreement with private hospitals to make sure that they would provide in-patient treatment at reasonable rates.
As on Tuesday, there are 3,43,091 Covid-19 cases in the country, of which, nearly 1,80,000 recovered and 9,900 died, according to data available from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW). India is now consistently recording cases between 10,000 and 11,000 daily.
Critical care
As the cases rise rapidly, the Ministry has pointed out that Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh have already negotiated and reached an agreement with the private sector to provide critical care for in-patient Covid-19 admissions at reasonable rates.
The number of tests conducted each day is being augmented, too. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said India now has the capacity to test up to 3-lakh samples per day. In the last 24 hours, half of this capacity was utilised with as many as 1,54,935 samples tested in a day. In five months, up to 59,21,069 samples have been tested in all.
While the national capital was recently caught in the eye of a storm, as the Supreme Court had pulled it up for low testing, the Ministry has clarified that Delhi currently has the capacity to test up to 17,000 samples per day in 42 labs. Delhi has a total of 42,829 cases, that include 16,427 recovered patients and another 1,400 died. It is now next only to Tamil Nadu, which has recorded 46,504 cases and Maharashtra 1,10,744 cases.
The remote Union Territory of Ladakh, which had 103 cases until June 8, recorded up to 239 cases on June 13, which escalated to 437 on June 14 and spiked up to 555 on June 16. Only 82 persons have recovered and one has died, leading the hilly UT to be the latest region registering the Covid-19 spike.
A letter from the Editor
Dear Readers,
The coronavirus crisis has changed the world completely in the last few months. All of us have been locked into our homes, economic activity has come to a near standstill. Everyone has been impacted.
Including your favourite business and financial newspaper. Our printing and distribution chains have been severely disrupted across the country, leaving readers without access to newspapers. Newspaper delivery agents have also been unable to service their customers because of multiple restrictions.
In these difficult times, we, at BusinessLine have been working continuously every day so that you are informed about all the developments – whether on the pandemic, on policy responses, or the impact on the world of business and finance. Our team has been working round the clock to keep track of developments so that you – the reader – gets accurate information and actionable insights so that you can protect your jobs, businesses, finances and investments.
We are trying our best to ensure the newspaper reaches your hands every day. We have also ensured that even if your paper is not delivered, you can access BusinessLine in the e-paper format – just as it appears in print. Our website and apps too, are updated every minute, so that you can access the information you want anywhere, anytime.
But all this comes at a heavy cost. As you are aware, the lockdowns have wiped out almost all our entire revenue stream. Sustaining our quality journalism has become extremely challenging. That we have managed so far is thanks to your support. I thank all our subscribers – print and digital – for your support.
I appeal to all or readers to help us navigate these challenging times and help sustain one of the truly independent and credible voices in the world of Indian journalism. Doing so is easy. You can help us enormously simply by subscribing to our digital or e-paper editions. We offer several affordable subscription plans for our website, which includes Portfolio, our investment advisory section that offers rich investment advice from our highly qualified, in-house Research Bureau, the only such team in the Indian newspaper industry.
A little help from you can make a huge difference to the cause of quality journalism!
Support Quality Journalism