Nearly half of coronavirus patients have recovered: Health ministry data

As Covid-19 cases in India inch closer to the 200,000-mark, nearly half of the patients have been cured, taking the recovery rate to over 48 per cent, according to the health ministry data.

More than 95,000 people have recovered as of Tuesday morning, while 5,598 have died, showed data even as the ICMR cautioned the country was “very far away from he peak” of the coronavirus pandemic.

 India has the seventh-highest number of Covid-19 cases in the world, just ahead of France. “It is a wrong comparison... it should take into account the population of our country,” said Lav Agarwal, joint secretary, health ministry.

An age profile analysis shows that 10 per cent of India’s population, which falls in the bracket of 60 and above, accounts for 50 per cent of coronavirus-related deaths.

He said the overall performance of India is stable, with a 2.82 per cent fatality rate while around 14 countries with a cumulative population equal to India’s have seen 22.5 per cent more cases and 55 per cent more deaths compared to India.

“India’s fatality rate is among the lowest in the world... Globally it is 6.13 per cent... Fatality per lakh (100,000) population is also among the lowest in India at 0.41 against the global average of 4.9,” Agarwal said. 

There are countries with a figure as high as 62 (Spain) and 82 (Belgium), he added.

On whether India is in the community transmission stage, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said, “Instead of using the word 'community transmission', we have to understand how much the disease has spread and where we stand in comparison to other countries,” said Nivedita Gupta, scientist, ICMR. 

She added: “We are very far away from the peak. Our preventive measures to curtail the disease are very effective and we are better positioned in comparison with other countries.”

The ICMR is conducting a serological survey to understand the spread of the disease and around 34,000 individuals have been tested as part of the study. “The study is still going on... The results will be known to us by early next week,” Gupta added.

Over 3.9 million tests have been done in India so far, with more than 120,000 tests conducted in the last 24 hours, according to the ICMR data.

She said that there was no under-reporting of deaths in the country. “It is not fair to attribute all deaths to Covid-19. Hospitals are doing a causality assessment to find out if deaths are Covid or non-covid,” Gupta added. 

Agarwal said there was no abnormal increase in the number of deaths in the mortuaries. “The country is in safe hands and continuous efforts are on to manage the disease,” he said.

Talking about adapting the new normal, he said: “As we are in ‘Unlock 1’ situation, the challenge before us is how to follow Covid-appropriate behaviour, be it in terms of travel or office functioning. We have to think in terms of a new normal on how to live with the virus by taking adequate precautions so as to protect ourselves from it,” he said.