From Our Bureau
26TH JUNE 2020
India witnessed a big surge in COVID-19 positive cases, with record 17,296 fresh cases reported on Friday, taking the country’s cumulative tally to 4,90,401. The death toll rose to 15,301, with 407 fatalities in the last 24 hours.
The graded, pre-emptive and pro-active steps taken by Government of India along with the States/Union Territories for prevention, containment and management of COVID-19 are showing encouraging results. The recovered cases have exceeded the active cases by 96,174. During the last 24 hours, 13,940 COVID-19 patients have been cured, taking the cumulative figure to 2,85,637. This has led to the recovery rate touching 58.24 percent amongst COVID-19 patients.
Presently, there are 1,89,463 positive cases and all are under active medical supervision.
In the quest to expand the COVID-19 testing labs network across the country, ICMR has inducted 11 new labs in the last 24 hours. India now has 1,016 diagnostic labs dedicated to COVID-19. This includes 737 in the government sector and 279 private labs. These consist of Real-Time RT PCR-based testing labs: 560 (Govt: 359 + Private: 201), TrueNat-based testing labs : 369 (Govt: 346 + Private: 23) and CBNAAT-based testing labs : 87 (Govt: 32 + Private: 55)
The number of samples tested every day continues to grow steadily. During the past 24 hours, 2,15,446 tests have been conducted in the labs. The total number of samples tested, as on date, is 77,76,228.
Meanwhile, the Union Home Secretary held a meeting to review implementation of various decisions on COVID-19 in Delhi which were taken on 21st June in a meeting chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Member Niti Aayog Dr. V.K. Paul, Director AIIMS Dr. Randeep Guleria, Director General ICMR Dr. Balram Bhargava along with Delhi’s Chief Secretary & Health Secretary attended the meeting.
In the meeting, it was noted that decisions were being implemented in a smooth and timely manner and a COVID-19 response plan was finalised for Delhi. District level teams for COVID-19 related tasks were also constituted.
It was also informed in the meeting that the re-drawing of containment zones including all clusters of COVID-19 outbreak in Delhi would be completed, as per the timeline fixed by the Union Home Minister. Door to door health survey would also be completed by 30th June 30.
According to the directives of the Union Home Minister, discussion took place on the serological survey in Delhi, which will be carried out jointly by NCDC and the Delhi Government. The survey will begin from June 27 and training of the concerned survey teams was completed.
The Union Home Minister also approved the combined use of Aarogya Setu & Itihaas apps as strong predictive tools for future detection of COVID-19 outbreaks in population clusters. Training on the combined use of the apps was imparted by NCDC trainers to the district teams of the Delhi Government. (eom)
