India recorded 909 new COVID-19 cases, 34 deaths in 24 hrs; 1671 patients need oxygen support: Health Ministry
India on Sunday recorded 909 new coronavirus positive cases and 34 deaths in 24 hours, Health Ministry Joint Secretary Lav Aggarwal informed. With the fresh cases, the total number of confirmed cases in the country has reached 8,356 including 273 deaths. Addressing the media, in his daily breifing, Aggarwal said the government is increasing the testing capacity in private and government medical colleges.
"On March 29, we had 979 positive cases,now we've 8356 positive cases; of these 20% cases need ICU support. So, today too 1,671 patients need oxygen support and critical care treatment. This figure is imp to show that govt is planning things in being over prepared," Aggarwal said.
He said that the Ministry had a detailed discussion with the Health Minister and Home Minister according to which the ministry is increasing testing capacity in private and government medical college. "To support this effort, 14 mental institutes have been identified including AIIMS and Nimhans, through which we will increase our testing capacity in government medical colleges," he said.
"As per 9th April data, if we needed 1,100 beds we had 85,000 beds. Today when we need 1,671 beds, then we have 1 lakh 5 thousand beds in the dedicated 601 COVID-19 hospitals," he added.
On being asked about resurgence in COVID-19 cases in last few days in China, Japan and Korea, Luv Aggarwal said that we need to make sure that we continue to follow our containment and social distancing measures like we are following today.
Punya Salila Srivastava, Joint Secretary, MHA said the situation regarding essential commodities is under control in the MHA control room, officials of Ministries of Civil Aviation, Consumer Affairs and Railways have been working in coordination with states to resolve logistics problems.
Giving details on the numbers of samples that have been tested on average, Dr Manoj Murhekar, Indian Council of Medical Research said, "In the last five days, the average number of samples that have been tested is 15,747 per day and the average number of samples which tested positive is 584."
ICMR further informed that more than 40 vaccines are under development but none have reached the next stage.
