Commerce and Industry Minister reviews COVID-19 status, oxygen availability with 12 States/UTs

The Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal and the Union Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba on Saturday took a high-level meeting through video conferencing with 12 States and Union Territories (UTs) to review the status of COVID-19 management including oxygen availability and usage.

These 12 states and UTs are reporting about 80 per cent of the COVID-19 caseload in the country. They include Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Chandigarh, Telangana, Kerala, Delhi, Punjab, and West Bengal.

"Goyal specifically requested states and UT administrators to focus on analysing district level and health facility level status and effectively plan and manage logistical issues related to Oxygen availability. The Commerce and Industry Minister also urged them to share their best practices which in turn can be emulated by other States/UTs in the country," said the government statement.

The Cabinet Secretary while complimenting the States for significantly ramping up testing expressed concern that the case-fatality rates of several States are still higher than that of the national average.

"Gauba urged the States to analyse mortalities district- and hospital-wise for identification of critical areas of intervention. He also exhorted the states to ensure optimal utilisation of RT-PCR capacity. He underlined the need for ensuring that no symptomatic negative case (tested by Rapid Antigen Tests) is missed and all such cases are mandatorily administered RT-PCR test," the government said.

Rajesh Bhushan, the Union Health Secretary presented a detailed status note of COVID-19 on all these states with particular focus on the number of tests being conducted in each State/UT, their positivity rate, and their average daily CFR, availability of health infrastructure, and their district-wise oxygen availability.

Oxygen support is one of the key medical procedures for the treatment of Covid-19 patients.

So far, India has reported over 5 million Covid-19 cases with 85,619 deaths across the country.

( With inputs from ANI )