5 lakh COVID tests done, but not enough: Govt

April 23, 2020 17:05

Union Health Ministry briefs the media over the Coronavirus crisis:

"In the last 24 hours 1409 positive cases have been reported, which takes India's total confirmed cases to 21,393," Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Health Ministry said. "As on today, we have 12 districts that did not have a fresh case in the last 28 days or more. There are now 78 districts (23 States/UT) that has not reported any fresh cases during the last 14 Days. 4,257 COVID-19 patients, which is 19.89 per cent, have been cured so far."

The Home Ministry clarified to states that in-house care-givers of senior citizens, prepaid mobile recharge utilities and food processing units in urban areas are exempted from lockdown restrictions.

Home Ministry has also allowed shops selling electric fans to operate and the shops that sell educational books for students have also been allowed to operate. "Considering that Indian seafarers are stranded and/or are not able to join duty and that seafarers from other countries may take place of Indian seafarers, MHA has issued Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) on sign-on/sign-off for Indian seafarers at Indian ports and their movement.

MHA also said that the states are facilitating commercial activities as per MHA guidelines, in areas which are not hotspots or containment zones.

Increase in COVID-19 cases in India more or less linear not exponential. The ministry says India has been able to cut transmission, minimise spread and increase doubling rate.

"We have utilized this time to prepare ourselves for future. Growth has been more or less linear, not exponential, said CK Mishra, Environment Secretary and Chairman, Empowered Group-2.

"On March 23 we've done 14,915 tests across the country and on April 22 we have done more than 5 lakh tests. If a rough calculation is done it is about 33 times in 30 days.This is not enough and we need to ramp testing in this country," the ministry said.

"Last month, the number of dedicated COVID-19 hospitals rose by 3.5 times while isolation beds increased by 3.6 times," the government said.

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