New Delhi: The death toll in India crossed the 400-mark to 414 and the total number of coronavirus positive cases soared to 12,380 according to data provided by the Union Health Minister.
While the number of active COVID-19 cases in India is 10,477, as many as 1,488 people have been cured and discharged. The total number of cases also include 76 foreign nationals.
Twenty-two deaths were reported since Wednesday evening, the Health Ministry said in its updated data. Nine fatalities were reported from Maharashtra, five from Andhra Pradesh, three from Gujarat, two each from Delhi and Tamil Nadu and one from Karnataka. Of the total 414 deaths, Maharashtra tops the tally with 187 fatalities, followed by Madhya Pradesh at 53, Gujarat at 33, Delhi at 32 and Telengana at 18.
Meanwhile the Health Ministry refuted allegations that India is not conducting enough COVID-19 tests. It asserted that in a country with such a huge population ‘not all people belong to vulnerable groups’.
Responding to a question about Congress leader Rahul Gandhi alleging that the scale of testing in India has been low so far at 199 per 10 lakh people, the chief of Epidemiology and Communicable diseases at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Dr Raman R Gangakhedkar said for each positive case the country tests 24 people.
“In countries like Japan, one out of 11.7 tests turns out to be positive, which is among the highest in the world. Italy tests 6.7 persons for one positive test while the USA tests 5.3 persons and the United Kingdom 3.4,” Dr Gangakhedkar said during a daily press briefing on the country’s COVID-19 situation.
Adding to the remark, Lav Agarwal, the joint secretary in the Health Ministry, said data can be interpreted in many ways and the government’s effort is aimed at ensuring not a single positive case is missed out.
“There is a defined criteria. Compared to other countries… we are testing 24 people out of each positive case. We have been able to contain the spread of the virus to some extent through advanced action measures. It is not the absolute number of testing which will be our defining criteria. What is important is to see what output is yielded in our containment measures linked with testing,” Agarwal said.
“We are also testing patients with severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) and influenza like illness (ILI) even in places which have not reported any (coronavirus) positive case,” Agarwal added.
Addressing a press conference via video link earlier in the day, Rahul Gandhi called for aggressive testing to defeat coronavirus and asserted that it should be used strategically.
“If you have to fight the virus, you have to increase testing dramatically and your testing has to go from chasing the virus to moving ahead of it. That means you have to move into random testing,” Rahul Gandhi noted.
Dr Gangakhedkar, however, said 2,90,401 samples have been tested so far, of which 30,043 were tested on Wednesday itself.
Agencies