Addressing a press briefing on the Coronavirus situation in the country, Health Ministry, Joint Secretary, Lav Agarwal said that a revised list of red, orange and green zones will be circulated to all states soon after the analysis of data.
Photo: AFP
The Central government on Friday said that India’s recovery rate against COVID-19 coronavirus has risen to 29.36 per cent even as India recorded 56,342 confirmed cases and 1,886 deaths.
3,390 new Coronavirus cases and 104 fatalities were reported in the last 24 hours with 1,273 recoveries.
Advertisement
Addressing a press briefing on the COVID-19 situation in the country, Health Ministry, Joint Secretary, Lav Agarwal said that till now, 16,540 patients have been cured and 37,916 patients are under active medical supervision.
Advertisement
He informed that no positive cases of COVID-19 have been detected in 216 districts while in 42 districts, no new infections have been detected in the last 28 days.
Elaborating on the spread of the infection, the health official said, “In 29 districts, no new cases have been detected in the last 21 days and in 36 districts, no new cases have been detected in the last 14 days. In 46 districts, no new cases have been detected in the last 7 days.”
He added that “If we will follow the required do’s and don’ts, we may not achieve the peak in Coronavirus cases.” “There is always a possibility to witness spike in cases if we do not take the required precautions and follow processes,” Agarwal said.
The government official further stressed on the need to “learn to live with the virus”.
“Today, when we are talking of relaxations and return of migrant workers, we have to understand that we also have to learn to live with the virus. The preventive guidelines against the virus need to be implemented as behavioral changes,” said Lav Agrawal.
The health ministry joint secretary said that ‘Project PLACID’ — Phase-II Open-Label Randomised Controlled Trial of ICMR has received approval of the COVID-19 National Ethics Committee. Under this, the ICMR will conduct trial in 21 hospitals, to assess safety and efficacy of convalescent plasma.
Meanwhile, Lav Agarwal said that a revised list of red, orange and green zones will be circulated to all states soon after the analysis of data.
The Health Ministry last week finalised the list of containment zones and divided the states and districts into different categories according to the COVID-19 situation in these areas.
As per the list, 130 districts fall under the Red Zones, 284 in the Orange Zones and 319 in Green Zones.
After consulting the state governments and the chief secretaries of the states, the health ministry has decided to put all metro cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, in the Red Zone. The Red Zone cities also include Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad.
India is under lockdown since March 24, which will continue till May 17, although with some relaxations in orange and green zones. However, all businesses and movement of people in containment spots and red zones are prohibited.
Addressing the press briefing, MHA Joint Secretary Punya Salila Srivastava informed that the Railways has run 222 ‘Shramik Special’ trains for the movement of stranded persons and more than 2.5 lakh people have benefited from the facility so far.
The officials also informed about the India Railways converting 5,231 coaches as COVID care centres, which will be placed at 215 identified stations and used for treatment of mild and very mild cases while ensuring that different coaches are designated for suspected and confirmed cases.
Advertisement
