With 1,035 new Covid-19 cases and 40 deaths in the past 24 hours, the Government is preparing for an exigency. It has marked a total of 586 hospitals as dedicated Covid-19 hospitals having capacity of over one lakh isolation beds and 11,500 ICU beds.
Similarly, the Indian Railways is transforming up to 20,000 old coaches into emergency care units that can be deployed to remote and hard-hit areas experiencing a shortage of hospital beds.
Emphasising that India has been deploying a graded response to fight coronavirus outbreak, Union Health Ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal said on Saturday, “At least 1,00,000 isolation beds and 11,500 ICU beds have been reserved for Covid-19 patients across the country. Also, 587 dedicated Covid-19 hospitals have been earmarked at Central and the State levels.
“PPEs, ventilators and other critical medical supplies are being ensured by the Centre to States. The containment action plan, contact tracing and other planning are being ensured,” Agarwal said while talking to reporters here.
While the Government has chalked out three-tier plan to categorise the patients depending on the severity of their infections, private hospitals across India have been asked to designate dedicated wings to treat the affected patients, prepare for sample collection, discharge patients who are stable and divide medical staff into two groups so that even if one group gets infected, the other can work.
The Indian Council Of Medical Research (ICMR) said 1,71,718 samples had been tested. On Friday, 16,564 tests were conducted through a network of Government and private labs.
Maharashtra which reported over 200 cases on Saturday is severely affected by the coronavirus pandemic with total 1,666 cases. With 13 news deaths, the death toll in the State surged to 110. Maharashtra accounts for over 45% of the total coronavirus deaths in the nation.
After Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu confirmed the highest number of Covid-19 patients. As many as 58 people in Tamil Nadu tested positive for the coronavirus in last 24 hours, taking the total tally in the State to 969 while Delhi also witnessed a steep rise in coronavirus patients. The national Capital recorded 166 new cases on Saturday and its total stood at1069.
Kerala, which had reported first coronavirus case in the country, has registered 364 cases while Madhya Pradesh confirmed at least total 678 cases. The death toll in the State stood at 39. Uttar Pradesh confirmed over 400 coronavirus patients.
Andhra Pradesh recorded 405 Covid-19 cases. Gujarat registered 90 fresh cases in last 24 hours, raising the total count in the State to 460. 22 people died in Gujarat since the outbreak emerged.
More than 215 cases have been reported in Karnataka and 224 in Jammu & Kashmir. Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab too reported new cases.
In the meantime, the Union Health Ministry maintained that no community transmission is taking place as yet in India. The World Health Organisation has put India in a category named ‘cluster of cases’.