Of the total 37,23,446 patients suffering from Covid-19 across India, at least 9,02,291 patients are on oxygen support while 1,70,841 are on ventilators. The number of patients in ICU beds is 4,88,861.
Percentage wise this translates to 1.34 per cent of the active caseload in the ICU, 0.39 per cent of them on ventilators while 3.70 per cent of them are on oxygen support.
However, these are just the reported cases that have reached the Government’s health set-up and were shared by Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan at the 25th Group of Ministers (GoM) meeting held on Friday.
In actuality the data may be on the higher side as several people have died for want of oxygen support and ventilators as health infrastructure is crumbling across the country.
Data speaks: In the last 24 hours, 4,187 people died, taking total deaths to 2.38 lakh while India recorded 4.01 cases on Friday, taking the active caseload to 37,23,446 as India witnessed the second Covid wave is more lethal and infectious.
Unlike the earlier Group of Minister’s meetings, Dr Harsh Vardhan did not share data to the GoM on the number of beds available for the critical patients in the statement issued by the Ministry on its website.
For instance, in 24th GoM held last month, to be precise on April 9, the Minister had said that of the total 4,68,974 total Covid beds available in them, 2,63,573 are isolation beds, 50,408 are ICU beds and 1,54,993 are oxygen supported beds.
Also, 4,043 (Centre:85 and States: 3,958) dedicated Covid health centres have been set up. It consists of 3,57,096 total Covid beds, out of which 2,31,462 are Isolation Beds, 25,459 are ICU Beds and 1,00, 175 are Oxygen Supported Beds. Total 12,673 quarantine centres and 9,313 total Covid Care Centres have also been set up with 28 Covid Care Centres alone in Delhi with 9,421 total isolation beds, the Minister had said, as per the statement.
The Union Health Minister also requested States to set aside 70 per cent of vaccines received through the Central Government route for administration of the second dose.
Also, 5.32 million vaccine doses are in the pipeline and will be supplied to the States shortly, said the Minister. “84,08,187 doses are still available with the states while a total of 53,25,000 doses are on the pipeline and will be supplied to the states soon.”
“The cumulative number of Covid-19 vaccine doses administered in the country has crossed 16.73 crore as on Saturday. A total of 17,49,57,770 doses have been delivered to the States, out of which 16,65,49,583 doses have been consumed.”
The Union Health Ministry had earlier asked the States and Union Territories to identify districts that should be considered for taking intensive and local containment measures.
“The districts/metropolis of Bengaluru (Urban), Ganjam, Pune, Delhi, Nagpur, Mumbai, Ernakulam, Lucknow, Kozhikode (Calicut), Thane, Nashik, Malappuram, Thrissur, Jaipur, Gurgaon, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Chandrapur, Kolkata,and Palakkad are the top 20 contributors of active cases in the country,” as per the statement.
The meeting was attended by Union Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar, Union Minister of Civil Aviation Hardeep S Puri, Minister of State for Ports, Shipping and Waterways and Chemical and Fertilizers Mansukh Mandaviya and Minister of State, Ministry of Home Affairs Nityanand Rai.
Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Minister of State, Health and Family Welfare and Dr Vinod K Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog were present virtually.
