600+ dedicated COVID-19 Hospitals ready in India – Union Health Ministry

The lockdown period for containing COVID-19’s transmission in India has been given an additional 19 days and it was conveyed by the PM on Tuesday. Adding more details about the medical capacity to fight the virus, Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary of Union Health Ministry on the regular press briefing on Tuesday said that India has 602 dedicated COVID-19 hospitals with 1,06,719 isolation beds and 12,024 ICU beds standing ready in the country.

Talking about the lockdown extension, he said that to ascertain the chain of transmission, 28 days is required. If no case is reported in a specific area for 28 days and the last case is found negative, then we can say that the Chain has been broken. India has lost 339+ individuals to the coronavirus infection, the total cases stand at 10,400+ and 1,035 people have recovered till date.

Raman Gangakhedkar, Head of Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases at ICMR shared that the government is ordering 33 lakh kits for RT-PCR tests and 37 lakh rapid test kits. It was learned that the latter is expected to arrive anytime.