New Delhi
The Union Minister for Health & Family Welfare, Dr. Harsh Vardhan, on Sunday visited Rajiv Gandhi Super Specialty Hospital to review status of COVID-19 management. The aforesaid hospital is functioning as dedicated 450-bedded COVID-19 hospital.
He urged the people of India to observe the extended period of lockdown (till May 03, 2020) in letter and spirit and treat it as an effective intervention to cut down the chain of transmission of COVID-19. He said by observing discipline in day to day life during Lockdown 2.0 would reap us rich dividends in terms of turning the tide against COVID-19. “We have won the battles and we will win this war against COVID-19 for sure”.
At the COVID ward, the minister spoke through video conferencing to a patient who was doctor himself and was admitted at the facility after turning COVID positive while giving his services at airport for screening COVID patients and at Narela quarantine.
Commending the frontline caregivers such as nurses, doctors and other healthcare personnel for the resilience, hard work, dedication and commitment shown by them in dealing with COVID-19, Dr Vardhan said, “The recovery rate of COVID-19 patients has steadily increased from 8% in the week ending March 29th to 12% in this week. This shows that more and more of these patients are getting better and going back to their homes.
He said, “The rate of growth of new cases has also been steadying for a while. Before the lockdown, India’s doubling rate was about 3 days. As per the data received today by 8 AM, over the past seven days, the doubling rate is 7.2 days, for the past 14 days it is 6.2, and over past 3 days it stands at 9.7. This is despite the fact that number of tests done every day has increased by almost 14 times.Same way, if you look at growth factor – from 15th March to 31st, it was 2.1, whereas in April it has come down to 1.2 which is a good drop of 40% which is a positive indication and is really encouraging for the whole country. This also indicates that the total number of COVID-19 cases are not increasing and may start stabilising.”
