The spike in the daily recovered COVID-19 patients continues in the country. For the second successive day, India has clocked a record recovery of more than 70,000 patients in a single day.

Around 73,642 patients recovered in the past 24 hours taking the total number of recoveries to 31,80,865. This has led to a surge in the recovery rate of India to 77.32 per cent, data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare maintains.

But then India also reported 90,632 fresh COVID-19 infections and 1065 new deaths in the past 24 hours taking the total to over 41 lakhs making India closer to Brazil, the second most affected country in the world.

In view of the surge in cases, the Union Health Secretary held a review meeting with the Health Secretaries of five states and one Union Territory which are exhibiting a surge in COVID-19 cases as well as fatalities.

The meeting was held over video conference to discuss ways to contain and manage COVID in 35 districts under their jurisdiction.

At the meeting, the Health Secretary underscored the need to suppress, curb and eventually break the chain of transmission of the infectious disease by strengthening the active case search focusing on the comorbid condition and elderly population in these districts.

These districts include Kolkata, Howrah, North 24 Parganas and 24 South Parganas in West Bengal, Pune, Nagpur, Thane, Mumbai, Mumbai Suburban, Kolhapur, Sangli, Nashik, Ahmednagar, Raigad, Jalgaon, Solapur, Satara, Palghar, Aurangabad, Dhule and Nanded in Maharashtra, Surat in Gujarat, Pondicherry in Puducherry, East Singhbhum in Jharkhand and all 11 districts in Delhi.

District Collectors and other functionaries of these districts were advised to prepare and update area specific plans to manage the pandemic.



In the meanwhile, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare is planning to deploy high-level central teams to Punjab and Union Territory of Chandigarh. The teams will assist the states to strengthen the measures to detect, contain and manage COVID-19 patients in order to further bring down the mortality rate.

So far, India has reported 41,13,811 cases out of which 31,80,865 patients have already recovered. Unfortunately, 70,626 people have lost their lives.