Centre rushes high-level teams to Himachal, Punjab, UP to fight COVID

The Union government on Sunday (November 22) decided to depute high-level teams to Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh to support the states in COVID-19 response and management.

These states have been either reporting a rise in the number of active cases — those  hospitalised or are in home isolation under medical supervision, or demonstrating a rise in the daily new cases, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said.

“These three-member teams will visit the districts reporting high number of COVID cases and support the state efforts towards strengthening containment, surveillance, testing, infection prevention and control measures, and efficient clinical management of the positive cases. The central teams shall also guide in effectively managing the challenges related to timely diagnosis and follow up,” it said.

Related News: India reported fewer COVID cases, deaths post Diwali than a week before

Earlier, the Union government had sent high-level teams to Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Manipur, and Chhattisgarh.

India’s present active caseload (4,40,962) has further declined to 4.85% of the total positive cases and has been below the 5% mark for some time now. The recovery rate has improved to 93.69% as the country registered 43,493 new recoveries in the last 24 hours, taking the total recovered cases to 85,21,617.

The gap between recovered cases and active cases is steadily increasing and now stands at 80,80,655, the health ministry said.

Related News: Follow election model to ensure COVID vaccine reaches every corner: PM

India’s COVID-19 cases now stand at 90,95,806 with 45,209 infections being reported in a day, while the death toll climbed to 1,33,227 with 501 new fatalities, according to the health ministry data updated at 8 am on Sunday.

Twenty six states/UTs have less than 20,000 active cases as on date. Seven states/UTs have active cases between 20,000 and 50,000 whereas Maharashtra and Kerala are reporting more than 50,000 caseload, and 77.68% of the new recovered cases are from  10 states/UTs, it added.

In Delhi, 6,963 persons recovered from COVID. Kerala and Maharashtra reported 6,719 and 4,088 new recoveries, respectively.

Delhi reported 5,879 cases in 24 hours till Sunday morning. Kerala recorded 5,772 new cases, while Maharashtra reported 5,760 daily cases on Saturday.