India conducts over 7 lakh single day Covid tests in new record
A health worker performs tests after taking nasal swab samples to test for COVID-19 in Guwahati.
Ramping up the daily testing for detecting coronavirus cases, India recorded a new high of over 7 lakh tests in a single day, the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry said on Sunday. Continuing the streak of more than 6 lakh tests in a single day in the last few days, India’s testing figures have grown exponentially with 7,19,364 tests done in the last 24 hours, it said. The total number of tests now stand at 2,41,06,535.
Though such a high level of testing will also lead to high number of daily positive cases, the Ministry, however, said the states have been advised to firmly focus on comprehensive tracking, prompt isolation and effective treatment, following the Centre-led strategy of “test, track and treat”.
“Several meetings have been taken in the past week to engage with states that are showing a higher fatality rate,” said the Ministry, adding such an approach has started showing results and recoveries are also increasing exponentially.
India has also recorded the highest number of recoveries in a single day with 53,879 Covid patients having recovered and discharged on Saturday. With this, the total number of recovered cases has touched another high of 14,80,884 as on Sunday.
“This is more than twice the number of active cases (6,28,747 on Sunday). The number of recovered cases has touched another high of 2.36 times the active cases, which are all under medical attention either in home isolation or in hospitals,” it said.
With a higher number of recovered patients, the Ministry said, the recovery rate, which has continued on its growth graph, stands at 68.78 per cent on Sunday.
The widening difference between recovered and active cases, indicative of the higher number of recoveries as compared to those either in hospitals or in home isolation, stands at 8,52,137 on Sunday.
The Ministry further said higher number of recoveries is a result of focused implementation of the various actions taken collectively by the Centre and state and Union Territory governments towards ramping up the hospital and clinical management infrastructure aimed at providing quality clinical care based on the standard of care, as advised by the Centre in its Clinical Treatment Protocol.
Due to these efforts, the Case Fatality Rate has further slumped, touching an improved rate of 2.01 per cent on Sunday, it said. The Ministry shared the information when India, the third-worst Covid-hit country globally, recorded a single-day spike of 64,399 coronavirus cases on Sunday.