New Delhi: The case load of the Coronavirus in India's hospitals is continuously dropping as the number of infections is nearing 6 lakh-mark on Friday. Even as 57,386 more patients recovered and discharged, new infections refuse to die down as 48,648 new cases were reported in the past 24 hours. The day's death toll slightly jumped to 563 from the previous day's 517.
The hospital load at 5.94 lakh is 7.35% of the total 80.89 lakh found infected with the positive symptoms since March while the total recoveries at 73.73 lakh were 91.15% of the infected. As many as 1,21,090 persons have succumbed to the dreaded disease so far, far less compared to other countries.
As many as 11.65 lakh persons underwent testing in 24 hours. A total of 10.77 crore persons have been tested in the country, with the health ministry stressing not to have an slackness in the testing.
Maharashtra on Friday recorded 156 deaths, a jump from 91 on the previous day. In terms of deaths in a single day, West Bengal came second with 61 deaths, followed by Chhattisgarh 53, Karnataka 45, Tamil Nadu 35 and Delhi 27.
Twelve of the 35 states/ Union Territories are still showing increase of the new Coronavirus cases while it is on the decline in the rest. Delhi topped with 1574 new cases in 24 hours, followed by Telangana 477, Haryana 377, Chhattisgarh 164, and Himachal Pradesh 122.
The WHO dashboard shows 4.53 crore Coronavirus cases and 11.86 lakh deaths worldwide. The United States is reporting higher incidence of the virus gain because of which India is now 11.24 lakh cases below its tally of 92.13 lakh.
India not lagging: Centre
The Health Ministry on Friday claimed that India has performed remarkably in fulfilling the criteria fixed by the World Health Organistion (WHO) to have a minimum of 140 tests per day per million population.
India's compliance of tests per day per million population is far better as it clicked the national average of 844 tests.
Not only this, all 35 states and Union Territories exceeded the advised number of test and topping them were Delhi and Kerala with over 3,000 tests. Delhi clocked 3,225 tests and Kerala 3,258. The lowest tests per million population were 260 in Rajasthan but even this was more than the WHO-prescribed 140 tests/day/million population.
Meanwhile, the Centre has asked states to constitute committees for coordination and overseeing COVID-19 vaccination drive while ensuring minimal disruptions in other routine healthcare services, and stressed early tracking of social media to dispel rumours which could impact the community acceptance of coronavirus inoculation.
Stating that COVID-19 vaccine introduction will span over a year with multiple groups being included "sequentially starting from health care workers", the Health Ministry has sought constitution of committees at state and district levels which will review preparatory activities in terms of cold chain preparedness, operational planning, strategies for state-specific challenges in terms of geographical terrain and hard-to-reach areas, etc.
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