Coronavirus growth curve has been flattened: Dr. Balram Bhargava- the Director-General of Indian Council of Medical Research(ICMR) has recently commented on the progression of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country. As per his statement, the situation is stable and the country has been able to ‘flatten the curve of the growth of COVID-19‘. However, on the question of the possible date of its peak of prevalence in the country, Dr. Bhargava refused to predict any date and said that it’s difficult to predict that it will come by May 3 or after that.
Speaking during the Union Health Ministry and Family Welfare’s daily media briefing on Thursday, he(Dr. Balram Bhargava) highlighted that the recovery rate from COVID -19 stands at 4.5 percent currently.
#WATCH: It is very difficult to tell that peak will arrive by 3rd May or when it will come. But it is very stable. Positivity rate has been 4.5% throughout, one can say we have been able to flatten the curve. However, difficult to predict it(peak): Dr Balram Bhargava, DG, ICMR pic.twitter.com/DyyAUvMxJn
— ANI (@ANI) April 23, 2020
AIIMS Director Randeep Guleria emphasized that it is important to not stigmatize those who have recovered from COVID-19, “This is a disease which is not that serious, 90-95% people recover, if we have that stigma and we don’t come forward then we may land up in a situation where because of our delayed treatment we may have higher mortality.”
‘Randeep Guleria’ also stated that the use of convalescent plasma has already started at various health centers to treat Coronavirus patients. A large number of people who have recovered from the COVID-19 infection have come forward to donate their plasma. Convalescent plasma is the plasma extracted from the blood of people who have recovered from COVID-19 infection.
Throwing further light on the government’s approach and preparedness against the Coronavirus outbreak in the country, Environment Secretary who also chairs the government’s Empowered Group-2 in the battle against Coronavirus CK Mishra said that the country has been able to earn time in order to prepare better for the challenges lying ahead by the ongoing lockdown. “In the last 30 days of lockdown, we have been able to cut transmission, minimize spread, consistently ramp up our testing & utilize this time to prepare ourselves for future”, CK Mishra said.
In addition to that, he also added that India has ramped its testing capacity by 33 times in 30 days. “On March 23 we’ve done 14,915 tests across the country and on April 22 we have done more than 5 lakh tests. If a rough calculation is done it is about 33 times in 30 days.”. However, he refused to call the testing capacity enough and called for the need to upscale testing capacity.
