NEW DELHI: The country’s doubling rate of COVID-19 cases has been 11.3 days for the last three days and India’s mortality rate from the infectious disease is around 3 per cent, Union health minister Harsh Vardhan said on Wednesday.
“Although the global mortality rate of coronavirus patients is around 7 per cent, India’s mortality rate of 3 per cent extends hope for all those afflicted by the disease,” he told the media.
About 86 per cent of novel coronavirus patients who have succumbed to the highly contagious disease so far also had co-morbid conditions like acute diabetes and hypertension, the minister said.
The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in a statement highlighted that only 0.33 per cent of COVID-19 patients are on ventilators, 1.5 per cent on oxygen support and 2.34 per cent in the ICU.
“These figures reflect the quality of care being provided across the country,” said Vardhan.
As of now, 288 government laboratories are testing for COVID-19, along with 97 private lab chains with around 16,000 sample collection centres.
The country’s testing numbers per day have now reached 60,000 and efforts are on to enhance it to 1 lakh tests per day, said the minister.
With 1813 new COVID-19 cases and 71 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, the total number of infections in India has risen to 31,787, which includes 22,982 active cases and 7,797 who have been cured and discharged.
Also, 1,008 coronavirus patients have succumbed to the contagious disease so far.