Briefing media on the Coronavirus situation in the country, the Ministry of Health on Thursday said that India’s recovery rate presently stands at 24.19 per cent, a major improvement from 14 days ago.
Health Ministry Joint Secretary, Lav Agrawal said that the COVID-19 recovery was only 13.06 per cent two weeks back, adding that the fatality rate in India is 3.2 per cent.
Comorbidities were found in COVID-19 patients in 78 per cent of the deaths, the official said and added that the doubling rate of infections has now increased to 11 days.
Lav Aggarwal further said that 16 states had performed better than national average.
On Tuesday, Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan had said that that the doubling rate of COVID-19 cases had slowed to 10.9 and termed the observation as a “significant progress”.
As far as testing and treatment protocol is concerned, Agrawal said only RT-PCR test is allowed in the current situation.
The Government had earlier junked the idea of using plasma therapy as a treatment for the deadly infection. Until the ICMR concludes its study and a robust scientific proof is available, plasma therapy should be used only for research or trial purpose, the health ministry has asserted.
Earlier today, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan had said India is doing better as compared to other countries on all parameters in its fight against COVID-19 and should be able to win this decisive war in the coming few weeks.
While virtually interacting with civil society organisations (CSOs) and NGOs at an event organised by Niti Aayog, Harsh Vardhan said such organisations have been working tirelessly to ensure essential resources reach the last mile.
1,718 new cases of Coronavirus were reported across the country in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of cases to 33,050 cases so far. 1,074 people have succumbed to the infection.
Meanwhile, Ministry of Home Affairs Joint Secretary Punya Salila Srivastava informed that the Government has issued orders to states/UTs to facilitate inter-state movement of stranded people, as per guidelines laid down by MHA and as per protocols developed by states.
On being asked if the Centre is considering proposal by many state governments for running special trains to transport stranded people like students and migrant labourers, Srivastava said, “As of now, the directives are to use buses.”