Central govt teams rushed to 10 states

NEWDELHI: The Centre decided on Saturday to rush teams of health experts to 10 states with the maximum number of Covid-19 cases to help state governments contain the rapid spread of the infection.

“The ministry of health and family welfare has decided to deploy central teams to 10 states that have witnessed/are witnessing high case load and high spurt of cases. The teams will assist the state health departments of respective states to facilitate management of Covid-19 outbreak,” the ministry said in a statement on Saturday night.

The expert teams consist of a senior official from the health ministry, a joint secretary-level nodal officer, and a public health expert. The team is meant to support the state health departments in implementation of containment measures in the affected areas within the respective states’ districts or cities.

The teams will be deployed to Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Between them, the 10 states have 38,000 infections that make up 60% of India’s total Covid-19 caseload, as of Saturday, according to the HT dashboard.

Last week, the Centre had rushed 20 central teams of health experts to 20 high caseload districts. Another high-level team, led by health ministry joint secretary, Lav Agarwal, had also visited Mumbai to support efforts in Covid-19 response and management in India’s worst-affected state, Maharashtra.

Earlier in the day, Union health minister Harsh Vardhan said that as of Saturday, the Covid-19 fatality rate in the country is 3.3%, and recovery rate 29.9%. He also said the doubling rate stood at 9.9 days over the past week. HT’s internal dashboard puts the figure at 10.7 days. The announcement came at a review of Covid situation in north-eastern states that have reported a total of 194 cases. The maximum cases have been reported from Tripura (118).

“As of yesterday, there are 2.41% present active patients in ICU, 0.38% on ventilators and 1.88% on oxygen support. The testing capacity has increased to 95,000 tests per day, with 332 government labs and 121 private labs operational. Cumulatively, 15,25,631 tests have been done so far...,” said Harsh Vardhan.