Harsh Vardhan rules out community transmission of COVID-19 in India
    Date :10-Jul-2020

Harsh Vardhan_1 &nbs
 
NEW DELHI,
 
 
UNION Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Thursday sought to quell fears of community transmission of COVID-19 in the country, saying there is no such thing yet. “During our discussions today, experts again stated that there is no community transmission in India. There may be some localised pockets where transmission is high but as a country, there’s no community transmission,” the Union Minister said after a meeting of Group of Ministers in the national capital.
 
Observing that currently, India has the third-largest number of COVID-19 cases across the globe, he said, “We need to understand this in perspective. We are the second most populated country in the world. Currently, India has 538 per million cases in India, as compared to the rest of the world, which has an average of 1,453. Similarly, in terms of deaths, we have 15 cases per million compared to the world’s average of 68.7.” India saw a record single-day surge of 24,879 COVID-19 cases taking the caseload to 7,67,296 on Thursday, with Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Delhi, Telangana, UP and Andhra Pradesh contributing to around 75 per cent of the new cases, according to the Union Health Ministry data.
 
The death toll climbed to 21,129 with 487 new fatalities, the updated data at 8 am showed. The number of recoveries stands at 4,76,377, while there are 2,69,789 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country. “Around 62.08 per cent of patients have recovered so far,” an official said. The total number of confirmed cases included foreigners. Further sharing the details of the steps taken by the Government to fight the pandemic, he added, “We have the best recovery rate in the world as well as the lowest fatality rate. Our country has a doubling rate of 21.
 
The Government has already distributed 2,16,00,000 masks across the country 1,21,00,000 PPE kits and 8,943 ventilators.” Over 2.6 lakh samples are being tested for COVID-19 per day, said Indian Council of Medical Research on Thursday. Addressing a press conference on COVID-19 situation in the country, ICMR Senior scientist Nivedita Gupta said, “The number of tests has increased, on an average, we are testing more than 2.6 lakh of samples per day. We hope to see a further rise. ICMR has been continuing its efforts to ramp up COVID-19 testing.”