Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Saturday said that the COVID-19 recovery rate has surged over 58 per cent in the country with around 3 lakh cured and discharged patients. “Our recovery rate has gone above 58 per cent and out of the total five lakh confirmed patients around 3 lakh people have recovered from COVID-19. The rest are also on the road to recovery and will hopefully return to their homes safe and sound,” Dr Harsh Vardhan said. He further said that 85 per cent of the patients came from eight states and Union Territories and not just this “over 87 per cent of the unfortunate deaths due to the disease also came from these eight states.” “Our mortality/fatality rate is near 3 per cent which is very less. Our doubling rate has come down to nearly 19 days, which was 3 days before the lockdown,” Dr Harsh Vardhan said. He said that the testing facilities have been ramped up significantly in the country and yesterday alone over 2,30,000 tests were conducted in the 1,026 approved labs in the country. Earlier in the day, a Group of Ministers (GoM) meeting under the chairmanship of Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan was being held through video conferencing. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri were also present in the meeting. India on Saturday crossed 5 lakh-mark with record highest spike of 18,552 cases of coronavirus reported in the country in the past 24 hours, according to the Union Health Ministry. Also, with 384 fatalities in the past 24 hours, the total deaths inched closer to the 16,000-mark. With this, the total number of active cases is 1,97,387 while a total of 2,95,880 people have been cured or discharged from hospitals.
