India’s tally of COVID-19 cases crossed the one lakh mark on Monday, with 5,079 new cases taking the total to 1,00,734, according to data from the State Health Departments. Of these 58,360 are active cases, while 39,217 persons have recovered from the infection.
The country recorded 136 more deaths in the last 24 hours. taking the overall death toll to 3,157.
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The average number of new cases everyday since May 11 has gone up to 4,077, while the average number of fatalities per day for the period is 115.
Maharashtra topped the nationwide tally with more than 35,000 confirmed cases and 1,249 deaths, followed by Tamil Nadu with 11,760 confirmed cases and 81 deaths. Gujarat has also reported 11,746 confirmed cases, but its death toll is higher than Tamil Nadu at 694. Mumbai reported 1,185 fresh cases and 23 more deaths, taking the total cases in the city to 21,152 and fatalities to 757.
According to the Union Health Ministry, the country has now registered a jump of over 10,000 cases in the past two days — the highest so far in 48 hours.
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“India currently has a recovery rate of 38.29%,” noted a release issued by the Health Ministry, which added that in terms of confirmed cases per lakh population, India has so far about 7.1 cases per lakh population which indicates that aggressive and early measures taken so far have shown encouraging results.
The Ministry added that it has now issued new guidelines to the States for categorisation of red/orange/green zones as part of its lockdown easing measures. The new directive allows States to delineate the containment and buffer zones.
As per the latest guidelines States have been asked to categorise districts/ municipal corporations, or if warranted subdivision/ ward or any other administrative unit as red/orange/green zone as per their field assessment.
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“States have been told to ensure stringent implementation of the containment plans in these containment zones,” the latest guidelines said.
“In the containment zones, active search for cases through house-to-house surveillance by special teams, testing of all cases as per sampling guidelines, contact tracing, clinical management of all confirmed cases are the priority tasks. Active involvement of community should be sought in this regard,” the latest guidelines said. States are also required to have a buffer zone around each containment zone to ensure that the infection does not spread to the adjoining areas.
In her letter to the States and Union Territories, Health Secretary Preeti Sudan said States could categorise areas using the broad guideline issued the Central Health Ministry.
“They, however, may also choose to categorise sub-division, ward or any other appropriate administrative unit into the colour-coded zones after detailed analysis at their end, duly taking into consideration the geographical spread of cases, contacts and their zone of influence in terms of disease spread,’’ the ministry said.
The letter states that the demarcation of the zones would be based on total active cases, cases per lakh population, doubling rate calculated over a seven-day period, case fatality rate, testing ratio (number of tests per lakh population) and sample positivity rate.
The Health Minstry, however, noted that the benchmarks or thresholds for critical and desirable levels are dynamic and may be revised by the Centre as per the evolving situation at the field level.
Meanwhile, the Federation of Resident Doctors' Association (FORDA), India has on Monday written to the Health Ministry stating that many doctors at the frontline, even after taking adequate precautions, are contracting the infection in different parts of the country.
In their letter the doctors note that the government should take a relook at its guideline for “Quarantine of Healthcare Workers” to ensure that adequate protection is available to this section.
