Four states from the Northeast including Mizoram, Manipur, Assam and Tripura are among 14 states and UTs across India which have been registering maximum COVID19 tests per million population and lower positivity rate than the national average of 8.07%.
“14 States & UTs have higher tests per million population and lower positivity rate than India average,” said Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan in New Delhi on Tuesday.
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According to the Union health ministry statistics, Mizoram has conducted 68,869 tests per million population with a positivity rate of 2.6%, Manipur 81,689 tests with 5.4% positivity rate, Assam 93,676 tests with 5.9% positivity rate and Tripura 90,679 tests per million population with a positivity rate of 7.6%.
Ironically, Assam with 3.39% is included among 10 states which account for 79% of the total active cases of 838,729.
Earlier in the day, Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan chaired the 21th meeting of the high-level Group of Ministers (GoM) on COVID19 through video conference.
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“With 62,27,295 recovered cases, India has the highest recovery rate of 86.78 percent in the world. Fatality Rate of 1.53 percent is the lowest in the world and we are reporting the three days doubling time has been successfully raised to 74.9 days,” said Dr Vardhan.
A total of 1927 labs at present have led to an upsurge in testing. India’s testing capacity has been hiked to 1.5 million tests per day. Close to11 lakh samples were tested in the last 24 hours, he said.
The Union health minister and chairperson of the GOM appealed to everyone regarding observance of COVID appropriate behaviour during the forthcoming festival season and the winter months, when the likelihood of an increase in the disease is high.
“The Prime Minister has launched the countrywide Jan Andolan to encourage people to adopt and encourage COVID appropriate behaviours to curb spread of the diseases while celebrating the festivals”, he stated.
While the overall recovery rate for India is 86.78%, Dr Sujeet K Singh, director (NCDC) informed that Dadar and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu have the highest recovery rate of 96.25% followed by A&N Islands (93.98%) and Bihar(93.89%).
“Kerala has the lowest recovery rate of 66.31% because of the huge surge in the number of cases in the recent days,” he said.
Pointing out the pattern of Influenza and Vector-Borne Diseases which peak during this season, he noted with concern the less reporting of cases of Influenza due to the COVID19 pandemic across the country.
The GoM meeting was attended by Dr S Jaishankar, minister of external affairs; Hardeep S Puri, minister of civil aviation; Mansukh Lal Mandaviya, MoS for shipping, chemicals and fertilizers; Ashwini Kumar Choubey, MoS for health and Dr. Vinod K Paul, member (health), NITI Aayog.