As India clocked 78,761 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, the highest jump reported by any country in the world, Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan has assured the country that the government is well-prepared to deal with any situation that may arise. A vaccine developed in India should be available in the first half of next year, he said. 

Talking exclusively to Opoyi, the minister said, “the government and the country’s health services are more than adequately prepared to deal with any contingency that may arise”. He detailed measures that the government has taken to deal with the virus by ramping up tests, providing for a large number of Covid care hospitals and equipping them with all that is needed to tackle the pandemic.

Dr Harsh Vardhan sought to allay apprehensions of a second wave of the Coronavirus hitting India, saying, “there is no definite evidence of such a thing being reported in significant terms across the world. Like many other viruses which have come to us this virus shall also slowly become endemic at some places for sometime both inside and outside the country.”

The minister, who is a medical doctor, held out hope that a vaccine will be available in India by the first part of next year. “If all goes well I’m hopeful that by the end of the year we should have a successful `and effective vaccine developed in the country which during the first six months of 2021 will be made available to Indians in a strategic manner.”

The minister refuted suggestions that the increase in the number of cases being reported on a daily basis are a result of community transmission.”There has been no community transmission in India even now. Although there have been few places where there has been localised transmission.”

Members of Shia Muslim community undergo thermal screening before entering Delhi’s Jama Masjid during Muharram on Sunday. (Photo credit: PTI)

The Health Minister claimed that the country is now much better prepared to deal with any fresh outbreaks or by related contingency. “We are much better prepared now. Even if we have more cases, we won’t have a shortage of beds in the country,” he said, pointing out that as of today India has have over 17,000 dedicated hospitals and health care centres to tackle Covid, with over 17 lakh beds.

There are 12,000 quarantine centres across the country, which again have lakhs of beds, he said. Dr Hasrh Vardhan claimed that a large number of beds, whether in Intensive Care Units, or beds with oxygen or with ventilator facilities are unoccupied. He said only three per cent Covid patients require ventilator-support, while 1.5 to 2 per cent require ICU beds and 2.5 to 3.5 per cent require oxygen.

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According to Dr Harsh Vardhan, India has done much better than most others across the world including some developed countries. He pointed out that experts had initially predicted over 300 million cases by July -August and five to six million deaths.

“Today, seven months after the first case was detected, we have only 3.5 million cases out of which 2.7 million have recovered and are back home and the rest are on the road to recovery. We have a recovery rate of nearly 77 per cent, which is the highest in the world, and the least fatality rate of around 1.8 per cent. Our cases per million and deaths per million still continue to be one of the lowest as compared to the global average,” the Minister said.