New Delhi December 23, 2020
There is a surge in new COVID-19 infections in India. The count of new infections stood at 23,950 in a single day, which revealed a 22% rise as compared to yesterday.
The new variant of the COVID -19 virus, SARS-CoV-2 that was discovered in the United Kingdom, has prompted the health ministry to issue a new set of guidelines and SOP. It was stated in this that the testing of all passengers either transiting or travelling through the UK airports had to undergo mandatory testing.
India had reported the lowest daily number of COVID-19 new infections on Tuesday but it was disheartening to note that just a day later, on Wednesday 23,950 new cases were reported. The total count in Wednesday stood at 10,099066. The tally on Tuesday of cases recorded the previous day on Monday stood at only 19,556 cases. This was the lowest figure reported after a span of 173 days. The active cases had dropped and were lower than 2 lakh.
With the new SOP in place, those passengers who tested positive would be isolated and put in separate isolation units within an institutional isolation center. The coordination of which would be done by the State Health authorities. The testing would be done with RT-PCR and those found negative would still be advised to undergo home quarantine, and their progress would be followed up by the respective state health authorities.
A recent 24 hour tally has revealed 333 deaths due to COVID-19, whereas 26,895 people have recovered and have been discharged in the same time span. The recovery rate of India stands at 95.65 % and the mortality rate stands at 1.45 %. The active cases form only 2.90 % of the total case count.
The Union Health Ministry data revealed the maximum number of cases from Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Maharashtra and West Bengal.
