India Is Better At Managing COVID-19 Than Other Countries: Health Ministry

In the COVID-19  press conference held after eight days, the Health Ministry, Home Ministry, and the Indian Council of Medical Research to update about India's current health infrastructure and measures to tackle COVID-19, the health ministry stated that only 6.39% of the active 61 thousand COVID-19 cases require any hospital management oxygen or ventilator support.

Around 2.94% of the active cases require oxygen support, 3% require ICU services and around 0.45% require ventilators.  

According to the health ministry, India has 7.9 cases per one lakh population when the world average is 62 per lakh. Similarly, India's mortality rate per one lakh population is 0.2 compared to the world average of 4.2 deaths per one lakh of population. 

The Health Ministry claims that India is doing a better job when the population of the country is taken into consideration. The country has been proactive and pre-emptive in its prevention and containment measures. 

India's recovery rate has been improving since the beginning of the lockdown. It currently stands at 39.62% whereas it was at 7% when the first lockdown started. 

The ICMR stated that more than 1 lakh tests have been conducted across the country for the past two days. A network of 555 laboratories are actively carrying out COVID-19 testing. 

When asked about the use of hydroxyhloroquine, the ICMR has decided to wait for results, review them and then take a call.