Less Than 2% In ICU, COVID-19 Recoveries Exceed Active Cases By Over 2.81 Lakh: Union Health Minister

The Minister was inaugurating the new block of the Rajkumari Amrit Kaur(RAK) OPD on Thursday at the AIIMS, along with Minister of State for Health Ashwini Kumar Choubey.

"Gradually we are moving in the direction to win the battle against the pandemic. Less than two per cent of the COVID-affected patients are admitted in ICUs," Vardhan said.

He added that testing capacity would be further enhanced to 10 lakh tests per day in the coming 12 weeks. He stated that this was matched with the progressively increasing recovered cases and the steadily increasing gap between recovered and active cases.

"This signifies that the measures taken as part of the graded, pre-emptive and pro-active approach under the 'Whole of Government' strategy is showing positive results," he said.

Meanwhile, the lab network has been strengthened significantly from one in January to 1,234 laboratories at present.

Built in an area of approximately 6,300 sqm, RAK OPD is the largest known OPD in India. The new RAK OPD Block also has a SMART Lab, which connects the various analyzers and technologies in a single integrated workflow. With a handling capacity of more than 10,000 patients per day, it has a capacity of expansion for up to two lakh tests per day.

India on Friday, July 17, crossed the one million (10 lakh) COVID-19 cases mark, becoming the third country in the #world to record more than a million cases after the US and Brazil. The country's total coronavirus caseload stands at 10,03,832.

As per the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare data, total positive cases include 3,42,473 active cases, 6,35,757 cured or discharged/migrated and 25,602 fatalities.