The Center on Sunday sought to suggest that the number of cases will escalate to exponential as the world is facing an infectious pandemic. Still, the Government is prepared to tackle the rise in coronavirus cases. With 909 new cases and 34 deaths have been registered in 24 hours, a total of 8,356 have been reported in the past. The overall infection-related deaths are 273.
Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary to the Minister of Health and Family Welfare of the Union, told the media during a regular briefing, “this is a pandemic and numbers can be exponential. Our effort is to take advanced steps.”
Agarwal mapped out the extent of preparedness and said that on 29 March 979 positive cases had been reported, of which 20% or 196 needed immediate treatment and oxygen. He cited, “That time, 41,900 dedicated COVID beds were available in 163 state-run hospitals. On 4 April, when we required 580 beds, we had 67,500 beds, on 9 April, 1,100 beds were required, but there were 8,5000 beds available in the country.”
“The total number of cases has increased, and we have 8,356 positive cases, of these 20 percent cases need ICU support, that means today 1,671 patients need oxygen support and critical care treatment and we have 1,05,000 dedicated Covid beds available in the country in 601 hospitals. This figure is important to show that the Government is planning things in advance and is over-prepared.” Agarwal added.
In the preparational efforts, health workers being trained by mentoring institutions such as AIIMS and NIMHANs, Bengaluru, has also been echoed by the Administration.
