Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, July 10: Even as India continued to report a dip in the new Covid-19 cases and many state governments started loosening restrictions to give a boost to the economy, the prime minister Narendra Modi on Saturday reviewed preparations for a possible third wave.
Modi instructed the official to keep in readiness over 1,500 oxygen plants across India to be connected to four lakh hospital beds in case of a third wave. He also directed the officials to work on advanced technology to weave them into a web for smooth monitoring and functioning.
Around 8,000 people are being formally trained to operate and train the plants, the PM was told at a review meeting, official sources said on Saturday.
India reported 42,766 new Corona cases and 1,206 deaths in the 24 hours ending 8 am on Saturday, according to data released by the Union Health Ministry. With this, the country’s overall Covid-19 caseload rose to over 3.07 crore (3,07,95,716), while the national death toll climbed to 4.07 lakh (4,07,145).
At the review meeting, the PM was told the Pressure Swing Absorption plants are being installed at district levels. While the DRDO is installing the plants with partner agencies, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), CPWD and National Buildings Construction Corporation are doing the civil work for them.
The PM directed that each district should have trained persons to run the plants.
Officials said the NHAI aims to finish their portion of the work by July end.
At the meeting, the PM said, “We should deploy advanced technology like IoT (Internet of Things) to track performance and functioning of these oxygen plants at local and national level.” During the second wave, shortage of oxygen had developed into a major crisis, with several deaths reported as hospitals ran out of adequate supplies.
Meanwhile, Kerala continued to be the topmost contributor, reporting 13,563 cases on Friday. Maharashtra detected 8.992 new infections.
With 45,254 patients recovering from the illness yesterday, the total number of recoveries in India has risen to over 2.99 crore (2,99,33,538). The national recovery rate stands at 97.20 per cent.
Active cases, meanwhile, have dropped to 4.55 lakh (4,55,033). The active cases comprise 1.48 per cent of the total infections, as per latest Health Ministry data.
Meanwhile, with daily case detections still above 40,000 and reports and pictures of blatant violations of social distancing norms coming from tourist spots, the head of the country’s pandemic task force Dr V K Paul has again warned that the second wave of Covid-19 is not over yet, and that cases could explode if people continue to behave recklessly.
As many as 19,55,225 samples were tested for Covid-19 on Friday, taking the total cumulative tests conducted so far for detection of the infection in the country to well over 42.90 crore. Meanwhile, the daily positivity rate was recorded at 2.19 per cent.
Over 1.73 crore unused Covid-19 vaccines still remain with states, Union Territories and private hospitals, the Union Health Ministry said on Saturday. Of the 38.54 crore vaccine doses that have been given to states and UTs so far through all sources, a total of 36,80,68,124 doses have been utilised.
“More than 1.73 cr (1,73,33,026) balance and unutilised COVID vaccine doses are still available with the States/UTs and private hospitals to be administered,” the Health Ministry said.