Highest single day recoveries; rate improves to 70%

nNEWDELHI: India recorded its highest single-day coronavirus disease (Covid-19) recoveries, in excess of 56,000, taking the overall recovery rate to 70%, which one expert said was the result of the knowledge and experience gained by health professionals in the battle against the virus.

“The record highest single-day recoveries at 56,110 registered in the last 24 hours are the result of the successful implementation of effective containment strategy, aggressive and comprehensive testing coupled with standardized clinical management of the critical patients based on holistic Standard of Care approach,” the ministry said in a statement.

India’s Covid-19 average daily recoveries have been constantly increasing, with the first week of July recording 15,000 daily average recovered cases, which leapt to at least 50,000 in the first week of August. Previous highest single day recoveries were recorded on August 10, when 54,859 patients had recovered.

With more patients recovering and being discharged from hospitals and home isolation, the total recoveries have crossed the 1.6 million mark to reach 1,639,599.

“The actual case load of the country is the active cases (643,948) which is only 27.64% of the total positive cases. They are under active medical supervision. With a consistent and sustained increase in recoveries, the gap between recovered patients and active Covid-19 cases has reached nearly 10 lakh (1 million),” the statement said.

Doctors treating Covid-19 patients say fewer patients are dying of the disease because of the lessons learnt and experience gained in clinically managing cases.

“We have more drugs and support therapies as compared to what we had a few months ago. There is better knowledge of what works and what does not to improve the condition of a Covid-19 patient,” said Dr Srikant Sharma, senior consultant in department of medicine at Moolchand Hospital.

Apart from improved clinical skills, focus on providing timely ambulance service for ferrying patients needing hospitalization so that the treatment starts on time, especially in remote areas has also been instrumental in increased recovery rate and reduced mortality rate.

The Case Fatality Rate (CFR) has also been low when compared to the global average. It is currently 1.98%. “The target before us is to ensure case fatality rate drops to below 1%, and the government is making all possible efforts to make sure this happens fast. Early detection of cases, timely referral is the key and we are coordinating with states and union territories to ensure all gaps are plugged to be able to achieve this target,” said a senior health ministry official who requested anonymity.

India’s testing capacity is also steadily increasing, and on Tuesday, a record number of singleday tests-- 7,33,449-- were conducted in 1,421 labs approved to perform Covid-19 testing across the country, including both public (944) and private (477) laboratories. The country has conducted at least 26 million cumulative Covid-19 tests since January 22 this year.

“Efforts are being made to achieve the target of performing at least one million tests by month end in a single day,” said an official from the Indian Council of Medical Research that is spearheading India’s Covid-19 testing initiative.