COVID-19: For the first time, India's case fatality rate falls below 2%, says Health Min

In a big milestone, India's Coronavirus case fatality rate (CFR) fell below 2% for the time Tuesday, even as the death toll reached 45,257 after 871 patients succumbed to the highly contagious respiratory disease in the last 24 hours. In comparison, the global average fatality rate is around 3.7%.

The Union Health Ministry said the focus on improved and effective clinical treatment in hospitals, use of non-invasive, improved, and coordinated services of the ambulances for ferrying patients for prompt and timely treatment have resulted in seamless efficient patient management of COVID-19 patients, leading to a gradual fall in fatality rate.

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Recoveries up, active cases down

Moreover, with nearly 16 lakh recovered COVID-19 patients, India's recovery rate now stands at nearly 70%. The Ministry said successful implementation of effective containment strategy, aggressive and comprehensive testing coupled with standardized clinical management of the critical patients based on a holistic Standard of Care approach, has resulted in such sharp hike in the recovery rate.

With more patients recovering and being discharged from hospitals and home isolation (in case of mild and moderate cases), the total recoveries have jumped to 15,83,489 with 47,746 COVID-19 patients being discharged in the last 24 hours.

The actual caseload of the country is the active cases (6,39,929) which is only 28.21% of the total positive cases. They are under active medical supervision.

With a consistent and sustained increase in recoveries, the gap between recovered patients and active COVID-19 cases has reached nearly 9.5 lakh. India's 'Test, Track, Treat' strategy is showing the desired result – the gap between percentage recoveries and percentage active Cases is growing every day, the Health Ministry said.

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18,320 tests per million

Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan told reporters in a media briefing that other than achievements in fatality and recovery rates, India's testing capacity has progressed exponentially and the country now conducts 18,320 tests per million people. Twenty four States/UTs are testing more than the national average, he said.

On the other hand, the test per million per day is now 506, four times the recommended level by the World Health Organisation (WHO), and States like Goa, Delhi, and Tamil Nadu have a rate higher than that. Bhushan informed that India had a single-day record of over seven lakh tests in a day this week.

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