No coronavirus cases in 180 districts in a week:Harsh Vardhan

In India, no fresh Covid cases have been detected in 180 districts in the last seven days. In his virtual address at the 25th meeting of the Group of Ministers (GoM) to discuss the pandemic situation, health minister Dr Harshvardhan on Saturday said that as on date, 1.34 per cent of Covid-19 patients were in ICU, 0.39 per cent on ventilator support and 3.70 per cent on oxygen support. He , said, "180 districts have showed no fresh cases in the last seven days, 18 districts in 14 days, 54 districts in 21 days and 32 districts were bereft of any fresh cases in the last 28 days."

Harsh Vardhan informed the GoM that the cumulative number of Covid vaccine doses administered in the country has crossed 16.73 crore on Saturday which includes nearly 23 lakh doses given on Friday. "A total of 17,49,57,770 doses have been delivered to the states, out of which 16,65,49,583 doses have been consumed and 84,08,187 doses are still available with the states. A total of 53,25,000 doses are on the pipeline and will be supplied to the states soon," he said. Reiterating the importance of full protection through two Covid vaccine doses, he urged all citizens to get the second dose saying it boosts the immunity against Covid-19 manifold.He requested the states to set aside 70 per cent of the vaccines received through central government channel for administration of the second dose.

The districts/metropolis of Bengaluru (Urban), Ganjam, Pune, Delhi, Nagpur, Mumbai, Ernakulam, Lucknow, Kozhikode (Calicut), Thane, Nashik, Malappuram, Thrissur, Jaipur, Gurgaon, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Chandrapur, Kolkata, Palakkad are the top 20 contributors of active cases in the country, the ministry said. The production of liquid medical oxygen (LMO) has been maximised to meet the present demand of Covid-19 patients. The domestic production has increased to more than 9400 MT/day,

The meeting was attended by Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar, Minister of Civil Aviation Hardeep S Puri, Minister of State for Ports, Shipping and Waterways and Chemical and Fertilisers Mansukh Mandaviya and Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai. Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Minister of State, Health and Family Welfare, and Dr Vinod K Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog were present in the meeting.