At 1.81%, India’s death rate among lowest

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 29

As India on Saturday recorded world's highest single-day rise of 76,472 Covid cases, the government cited 76.47 per cent recovery rate and 1.81 per cent case fatality rate to stress that the country had made tremendous strides in containing the infection.

After the total cases rose to 34,63,972 today and the toll reached 62,550, the Group of Ministers (GoM) reviewing the pandemic met for the 20th time to take stock of the situation. As many as 1,021 deaths have been reported in 24 hours.

Addressing the meeting, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said national recoveries had reached 26,48,998 and seven in every 10 patients had been discharged.

'Oxford vaccine in Phase-III trials'

VK Paul, head of the National Covid Vaccine Administration Taskforce, told the Group of Ministers that the Oxford vaccine candidate developed by Serum Institute of India was in Phase-III trial in Maharashtra and a few other states. TNS

He said the global comparison showed India had one of the lowest cases per million (2,424) and deaths per million (44) compared to the global average of 3,161 and 107.2, respectively. The GoM was informed that seven states, including Maharashtra, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, accounted for 81 per cent of the total deaths.

"India has made tremendous strides in containing the disease. Our case fatality rate is at its lowest (1.81 per cent) and the recovery rate has increased to 76.47 per cent. Also, only 0.29 per cent of the active cases are on ventilators, 1.93 per cent in the ICU and only 2.88 per cent on oxygen support," said Vardhan.

"A total of 1,576 labs have led to an upsurge in testing and the goal of 10 lakh tests per day has been fulfilled. More than nine lakh samples have been tested in the last 24 hours. With this, the total number of tests have crossed four crore," Vardhan said.