Coronavirus: Too early to predict trend of COVID-19 spread, says Govt

Centre on Friday said it was too early to predict a trend in COVID-19 cases in the country even as the number of those infected with the virus rose by 75 to 769 with a total of 17 succumbing to the disease so far.

“It is too early to predict a trend,” Lav Aggarwal, Joint Secretary, in the Ministry of Health told reporters during a daily briefing on the Covid-19 situation.

He was responding to questions on whether the health authorities were able to pick up a trend on the spread of the pandemic in the country.

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Aggarwal, at the same time, made it clear that it was important to remain alert and any failure of an individual to follow the guidelines could bring all the efforts made by the government to combat the COVID-19 outbreak to nought.

Ironically, the Centre’s assertions came on a day when reports of an IAS officer jumping home quarantine after returning from a foreign visit came to light. The IAS officer – Anupam Mishra – the sub-collector of Kollam district in Kerala fled his official residence to be in his home town in Uttar Pradesh.

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On shortage of ventilators to treat high-risk patients, Aggarwal said the government has placed an order for 40,000 ventilators which is expected to be delivered over the next two months.

“We have given an order to PSU to provide 10,000 ventilators. Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), which is one of the Defence Ministry’s PSUs, has also been requested to purchase 30,000 additional ventilators in 1-2 months,” Aggarwal said.

Experts had voiced concerns over the shortage of ventilators as government hospitals have only 8432 such devices which are crucial for the treatment of COVID-19 patients. One estimate put the requirement of ventilators to tackle the pandemic at over one lakh.

Meanwhile, Raman Gangakhedkar, head of the epidemiology and communicable disease at Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), said India would soon join the solidarity trials for developing a potential treatment for COVID-19.

“In order to look at newer drugs that might come, we are soon likely to participate in the WHO solidarity trial for COVID-19. Earlier we did not do it because our numbers were so small and our contribution would have looked minuscule,” Gangakhedkar said.

The solidarity trials are aimed at isolating drugs already approved by regulators for other diseases that could be used to treat COVID-19. Drugs identified in such an exercise would not require to go through the lengthy process of clinical trials.