NEW DELHI, May 20:
The nationwide tally of confirmed COVID-19 cases today rose by over 5,000 with new cases getting detected across states.
The Union Health Ministry said the recovery rate among those having tested positive has risen to nearly 40 per cent, from about 7 per cent before the lockdown began on March 25. It also said that hospital support was needed by less than 7 per cent patients.
In its morning 8 am update, the Ministry said the COVID-19 death toll has risen to 3,303 after 140 more deaths were reported in the last 24 hours, while the number of cases across the country rose by more than 5,600 to reach 1,06,750.
During a press briefing on the COVID-19 situation, Health Ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal said the total active COVID-19 cases now stands at 61,149 in the country and 42,298 people have recovered.
The current recovery rate stands at 39.62 per cent while it was 7.1 per cent at the beginning of lockdown, he added.
Tamil Nadu, badly affected State by the infection, reported 743 new cases to take its tally to 13,191, but also announced nearly 1,000 recoveries. Of the new cases, the state government said, 83 were returnees from Maharashtra.
In the national capital, a record number of 534 new cases were detected to take Delhi’s tally to over 11,000, while its death toll reached 176.
The Delhi Government, in the meantime, launched an exercise to define its own “Red, Orange and Green Zones” — marking of areas based on COVID-19 case load, sources said. Currently, all 11 districts are marked as ‘red’ under the central government labelling.
New cases were reported across various other States as well, including in Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Tripura, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh.
In Gujarat, another badly hit State with more than 12,000 cases and over 700 deaths, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani sought people’s participation in a week-long online campaign on COVID-19 fight. He said, “Now, it’s a direct battle against Coronavirus. We have to live with Coronavirus and also fight against it.”
Notices were issued to at least 16 private hospitals in the State for allegedly refusing to admit COVID-19 patients referred to them by Ahmedabad’s civic body. The State reported 398 new cases today.
Globally, over 49 lakh people have tested positive for the deadly virus infection since its emergence in China last December and more than 3 lakh have died.
While experts have said that a vaccine is still many months or even a year away, all eyes are on US-based company Moderna’s encouraging early results on a small group of healthy volunteers.
Eight candidate vaccines for COVID-19 are in the clinical evaluation, while 110 are in the preclinical stage, according to the WHO’s latest draft landscape. (PTI)
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel