Coronavirus: India Performed Better Than Any Big Developed Country: Harsh Vardhan

New Delhi: Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan held a virtual meeting with Health Ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Punjab, Rajasthan, Telangana, and West Bengal to review the COVID-19 situation.

"The whole country worked together by following the same strategy together. We have seen a lot of phases in this journey of 10 months. The first case was reported in Kerala followed by various other developments," said Dr Harsh Vardhan while interacting with the Health Ministers.

"The entire country followed the bold manner in which the lockdown was imposed under the leadership of PM Modi. Later, the unlock process was also implemented effectively. When we analyse the performance of our country, it seems India has performed better than any of the big developed countries in the world," he added.

The Union Health Minister continued saying, India's recovery rate has reached 92.56 per cent as of today morning.

"There was a surge in cases one or two months back. India's active cases used to hover around one lakh. Now the number of active cases has come down. Out of the five lakh active cases in India currently, many people are on the road to recovery," said Dr Vardhan.

"We hope we can get the vaccine at any time after the new year starts. After that arrangements need to be made to disseminate vaccine among 20 to 30 crore people. We need to make a list for that, vaccine centres and vaccinations as well. The team of vaccinations need to be lined up and trained for the same," he added.

With 45,903 new COVID-19 infections reported in the last 24 hours, India's total cases surged to 85,53,657, said Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) on Monday. With 490 new deaths reported in the last 24 hours, the death toll has mounted to 1,26,611.