From Our Bureau
30TH JULY 2020
India witnessed a big surge with 52,123 fresh COVID-19 positive cases reported on Thursday, the highest-ever for a single day, taking the country’s cumulative tally to 15,83,792. The death toll rose to 34,968, with 775 fatalities recorded in the last 24 hours.
India has achieved the landmark of more than 10 lakh recoveries from COVID-19. This is a testament to the sheer dedication to duty and selfless sacrifice of doctors, nurses and all frontline healthcare workers which has made such a tremendous recovery of COVID-19 patients a reality.
Coordinated implementation of COVID-19 management strategy by the Central Government and State/Union Territory governments has ensured that the recoveries are continuously on the rise with 1 lakh recoveries at the start of June to more than 10 lakh today.
The successful implementation of effective containment strategy, aggressive testing and standardized clinical management protocols based on a holistic Standard of Care approach have in a seamless manner resulted in a consistent trend of more than 30,000 recoveries/day for the seventh day in a row. There has been a continued increase in the average daily recoveries from around 15,000 in first week of July to around 35,000 in the last week.
With 32,553 patients discharged in the last 24 hours, the total recoveries have jumped to 10,20,582. The recovery rate today stands at 64.44 percent amongst COVID-19 patients. The gap between recovered patients and active COVID-19 cases currently stands at 4,92,340. With this figure, the recovered cases are 1.9 times the active cases, numbering 5,28,242, which are all under medical supervision today.
The State/UT governments have taken many measures at the ground level to increase affordable hospital infrastructure for seamless clinical management. The success can also be seen with 16 States/UTs recording higher Recovery Rate than the national average rate.
The aggressive testing along with ramped up hospital infrastructure by combining public and private sector efforts has enabled early identification and prompt triaging of COVID-19 patients leading to lower fatalities. The focus of containment strategy has been on early detection and isolation along with prioritizing care for the severe cases and high-risk population.
This has ensured that India has one of the lowest Case Fatality Rate (CFR) at 2.21 percent as compared to the Global average of 4 percent. As many as 24 States/UTs have lower CFR than the national average and 8 States/UTs are showing CFR below 1 percent.
The combined and focused efforts of Central Government and State/UT Governments have resulted in ramped up testing across the country to ensure early detection and isolation of COVID-19 positive cases. ICMR’s evolving testing strategy has widened the testing network across India.
As many as 4,46,642 samples were tested in the last 24 hours. The average daily tests (on a rolling week on week basis) have increased from 2.4 lakh in the first week of July to more than 4.68 lakh in the last week of July.
The testing lab network in the country is continuously strengthened with 1,321 labs in the country, as on date– 907 labs in the government sector and 414 private labs. These include: Real-Time RT PCR based testing labs: 676 (Govt: 412 + Private: 264),
TrueNat based testing labs: 541 (Govt: 465 + Private: 76) and CBNAAT based testing labs: 104 (Govt: 30 + Private: 74).
The enhanced testing infrastructure has led to a sharp increase in the cumulative testing from 88 lakh total tests (1st July 2020) to nearly 1.82 crore (30th July 2020). The Tests Per Million (TPM) has subsequently increased to 13,181.
As per the “Test, Track and Treat” strategy of the Central Government, the ramped up testing in the country has resulted in reduction in Positivity Rate across the country. Currently 21 States/UTs are reporting Positivity Rate of less than 10 percent. (eom)
