The government on Tuesday announced that over 50 percent of the country’s COVID-19 deaths amount to 10 percent of India’s population who are over the age of 60s. Apart from this, 73 percent of the COVID-19 deaths were dealing with co-morbidities.
The health ministry argued that India has managed to keep the COVID-19 situation in the country under control and thereby have reduced the number of deaths compared to other countries. According to the health ministry data, people age 60-74 comprise 8 percent of India’s population. This bracket has amounted to 38 percent of the COVID-19 deaths. The rest 12 percent of the deaths are above the age of 74 who represents 2 percent of the total population. India’s total death toll rose to 5,598 by Tuesday.
Lav Agarwal, the joint secretary of Health Ministry urged people to see the situation of India in comparison with other countries taking into account the size of its population and infection rates per million population. While reacting to the accusation of India reaching the 7th position globally, he said,
“Our COVID-19 fatality rate of 2.82 percent is among the lowest in the world, compared to a global fatality rate of 6.13 percent. We have been able to achieve this due to the timely identification of cases and proper clinical management.”
India crosses 2 lakh positive cases
India’s COVID-19 fatality rate per lakh population is 0.41 against the global average of 4..9. Addressing the press briefing, Agarwal also said that those people with high-risk are required to take preventive action and also urged people to take timely action based on the medical advice if they develop any COVID-19 symptoms. However, the government dismissed any claims of under-reporting of COVID-19 deaths and reassured that the states have been doing casualty assessment and attributing the death toll accordingly.
As of Wednesday afternoon, India has confirmed 2,08,532 positive cases out of which over 1,02,268 cases are still active. On the bright side, India has 1,00419 people who have successfully recovered from COVID-19. Maharashtra still remains the worst-hit state with 72,300 cases. Tamil Nadu, Delhi, and Gujarat are the other states that have been hard hit with 24,586, 22,132, and 17,632 cases respectively.
Source: The Times of India
