NEW DELHI:  About 2.73 lakh or roughly 80% of India’s 3.42 lakh active Covid-19 cases as of Thursday have either no symptoms or mild symptoms, and are in home isolation, the Union health ministry said on Friday. The rest, about 70,000 cases, are undergoing treatment at hospitals. 

This is for the first time the Centre is revealing the composition of Covid-19 cases in home isolation. 
“Almost 80% of the asymptomatic and mild cases have been advised home isolation under medical supervision,” the ministry said in a statement on Friday.

“The moderate and severe patients are being treated in either the dedicated Covid-19 hospitals or dedicated health centres,” the statement said. Keeping mild and asymptomatic patients under home isolation has helped ease the burden on hospitals, which are focused on treating severe cases and reducing the fatality rate, it noted. 

The ministry said less than 1.94 % of the current cases or 6,643 patients are lodged in ICUs, 0.35% or 1,198 patients are on ventilator support and 2.81% or 9,623 on oxygen beds. The ministry maintained that the country has followed a standard of care protocol for the differentiated categorisation of coronavirus patients—mild, moderate and severe—as clearly laid down in the Covid-19 clinical management protocol. “The effective clinical management strategies have shown to yield positive results,” the ministry noted.