Prepared for the worst, says Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan

New Delhi: India does not anticipate worst case scenario that has developed in many developed countries due to the coronavirus pandemic, Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan said.

"We do not anticipate worst case scenario in our country like many other developed countries but we still have are prepared the whole country to face the worst," said Vardhan in Delhi while interacting with Health Ministers and senior officials of northeast states on the current COVID-19 situation via video conferencing.

Vardhan said that the situation in India is improving as it fights against COVID-19.

"Our fatality rate continues to be around 3.3 per cent and the recovery rate has climbed up to 29.9 per cent. These are very good indicators.

The doubling rate for the last 3 days has been about 11 days, for last 7 days it has been 9.9 days," he said.

"We have dedicated 843 hospitals exclusively for COVID-19 patients'' treatment, which have about 1,65,991 beds in it for the same.

Across the country, there are 1, 991 dedicated COVID-19 health centres which have 1, 35, 643 beds. These beds include isolation as well as ICU beds," he added.

Vardhan said that the Health Ministry is continuously coordinating with the states and monitoring the data on a daily basis.

"There are 7, 645 quarantine centres across the country. We have distributed 69 lakhs N-95 masks have been to various state governments.

A total of 32.76 lakhs PPEs have been distributed to state governments by the centre. We started from one testing lab in Pune and now we have over 453 labs in the country," he said.