Union Government has said that it has been able to consistently ramp up country's COVID-19 testing in the last one month and over five lakh tests have been done so far.

It said, during the last month, the number of dedicated hospitals for treating Corona virus patients has been increased 3.5 times and the number of isolation beds rose by 3.6 times. This was stated by the Chairman of the Empowered Group which is coordinating availability of hospitals, isolation and quarantine facilities, disease surveillance and testing while briefing reporters in New Delhi last evening. He said, the number of dedicated COVID Hospitals and Health Care Centres are increasing continuously and over 3,773 such dedicated COVID facilities are identified in the country so far. Over 1.94 lakh isolation beds are in the country.

The Chairman said, the entire hospital preparation is now focused on providing oxygen to those who needs it. He said, despite a 24-fold increase in testing, percentage of positive cases is not rising. He said, the country’s testing strategy has been focused, targeted and continues to expand.

The Chairman added that the government has been able to cut Corona virus transmission, minimize its spread and increase the doubling time of COVID-19 cases in the country during the 30-day period of the nationwide lockdown. He said, the growth of COVID-19 has been more or less linear, not exponential in the last one month.

Meanwhile, the recovery rate of COVID-19 patients in the country has improved to 19.89 per cent. A total of 1,229 fresh COVID cases have been reported in the country in the last 24 hours taking the total number to 21,700. As many as 4,325 patients have recovered and discharged from the hospitals, while 686 patients have died. Health Ministry Spokesman said, there are 78 districts in the country where no new cases of COVID -19 have been reported in the last 14 days. He also said that there are 12 districts which have not reported fresh case in the last 28 days .

The Home Ministry Spokesperson informed about the exemptions announced by the government during lockdown. She said, the Centre has clarified to states that in-house care-givers of senior citizens, prepaid mobile recharge utilities and food processing units in urban areas are exempted from lockdown restrictions. She said, road construction, work at brick kilns and cement factories are a few activities gathering pace in the country. She also said, the states are facilitating commercial activity in areas which are not hot spots as per the guidelines.

Director-General, Indian Council of Medical Research informed that 325 labs are working in the country to test COVID-19. He said, the positivity rate of COVID-19 has been 4.5 per cent throughout and one can say that we have been able to flatten the curve. He also said Centre has been working with states to ensure required reagents are supplied to testing labs in timely and calibrated fashion.

