YOGI URGES PM TO ENSURE UNINTERRUPTED SUPPLY OF REAGENTS, RT-PCR TEST KITS

› The Covid fatality rate has come down to 0.6 percent in August as against gross death rate of 1.7 percent. YOGI ADITYANATH , chief minister

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday urged the Centre to continue providing the test reagents and real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test kits to Uttar Pradesh so that the state could further improve the coronavirus testing rate.

The chief minister made the demand while speaking with Narendra Modi during the Prime Minister’s meeting with chief ministers of 10 states, held through video conferencing.

Yogi also sought Centre’s support in buying high-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) equipment, which had been proving useful in the fight against Covid-19.

Insisting that the state government was making efforts to bring down the mortality rate of Covid-19 patients in the state, Yogi said the fatality rate has come down to 0.6 percent in August as against gross death rate of 1.7 percent. Yogi said 120 government labs and 39 private labs had been conducting Covid-19 tests in the state. Of these, 33 government labs had been conducting RTPCR tests, he informed the PM.

He said 115 TruNat machines had been installed in district hospitals and medical colleges for faster tests.

He said about 1 lakh tests per day were being conducted in the state for past 15 days and this number was highest in the country. He said the state’s testing rate per million population was 14,175 tests per day against all India average of 18,086 tests per day per million population.

He said state’s contribution in total Covid tests in the country was 16.76 percent. He said in all 33.14 lakh tests had been done up to now.

The facility for RTPCR tests will get functional in 17 additional labs by the end of August.

He said in all 1,31,763 Covid positive cases have been reported in the state and of them 48,998 were active cases while 80,589 had been completely cured. He said 20,818 persons were in home isolation in the state.

Yogi said the integrated command and control centres had been set up for better management of Covid-19.He also claimed that 61,775 Covid help desks had been set up in government and private hospitals, government offices and other industries.

He said a special surveillance drive was conducted from July 1 to 15 by more than 80,000 teams in the state. He said a survey of 20.88 crore persons was conducted and 1,80,007 symptomatic persons were listed and tested for Covid-19 during the period. He said surveillance teams and Covid helpdesks had been given 1,11,424 pulse oximeters and 11,14,125 infrared thermometers.

He said 1,23,460 beds have been set up in L-1 Covid hospitals while 15,812 beds were there in L-2 hospitals. About 12,490 beds have been set up in L-3 hospitals. He said 4,000 beds were available in ICUs and efforts were being made to increase this number to 8,000 beds by the end of August.

After the video conferencing, Yogi asked minister for medical health Jai Pratap Singh and minister for medical and health Atul Garg to visit different divisions and ensure increase in number of beds in Covid hospitals.