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New Delhi: With the coronavirus cases rising in the country, the Union Health Ministry on Monday said that the rate at which the number of coronavirus cases was becoming double in the last one week has improved to 7.5 days, as against 3.4 days before the nationwide lockdown was imposed.
Addressing a press conference, Ministry of Health and Family Affairs Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal said that 18 states and UTs have shown an improvement than the national average doubling rate.
1) Agarwal said that a total of 1,553 cases and 36 deaths have been reported in the last 24 hours taking the total number of cases in the country to 17,265 and death toll to 543 so far. According to him, 2,546 people have been cured and overall around 14.75 per cent people have recovered.
2) Agarwal further added that besides, Mahe in Puducherry and Kodagu in Karnataka, Pauri Garhwal district from Uttarakhand too has not reported any fresh case of coronavirus infection during last 28 days.
3) Moreover, there are 59 districts in 23 states and UTs where no case has been reported in the last 14 days. It is an improvement in the country. The development comes as all the patients in Goa have been discharged. No further active cases have been reported in the state yet.
4) The Health Ministry further added that the states and UTs where the doubling time is less than 20 days are Delhi where it is doubling in 8.5 days, Karnataka in 9.2 days, Telangana 9.4 days, Andhra Pradesh 10.6 days, Jammu and Kashmir 11.5 days, Punjab 13.1 days, Chattisgarh 13.3 days, Tamil Nadu 14 days and Bihar 16.4 days.
5) The other states where the doubling time is between 20 days to 30 days include Andaman and Nicobar Island where it was 20.1 days.
6) The Health Ministry also said that in Haryana, the cases are doubling in 21 days, in Himachal Pradesh 24.5 days, Chandigarh 25.4 days, Assam 25.8 days, Uttarakhand 26.6 days and Ladakh 26.6 days.
7) The Ministry of Agriculture said that the FCI has moved double the average quantity of food grains during the lockdown period and that face masks and hand sanitizers have been brought under Essential Commodities Act. “Sown area of summer crops has registered 36 per cent increase over last year; farming has been exempted from lockdown but social distancing has to be maintained,” the Agriculture Ministry official said.
8) After granting relaxation to some economic activities across the country, the Centre on Monday hiked MNREGA wages in the wake of the pandemic and the average increase is Rs 20.
9) Talking about the rapid antibody tests, Head of Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases at Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Raman R Gangakhedkar said that worldwide rapid tests are not used for individual diagnosis.
“The rapid antibody test is not used for individual diagnosis, as we don’t know how powerful the antibody developed will be against the virus. It can be used for surveillance. And consistent errors will not affect assessment of infection trends in epidemiological surveys,” he said.
10) Detailing about the complaints from West Bengal on repeat testing of patients claiming the RT-PCR kits are not working properly, Gangakhedkar said they are US FDA approved and have good quality standards.
“The only thing one has to keep in mind is that they need to be kept below 20 degrees Celsius. If temperature is higher, proper test results are not obtained. The complaint about repeat testings may have arisen since technician may have kept the kits and tried the test at room temperature,” he said.
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