India's daily domestic oxygen production increased to 9,400 MT

Giridhar Aramane, Secretary, Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways informed while presenting the current scenario of LMO production, allocation and supply during the 25th meeting of the high-level Group of Ministers (GoM) on Covid-19 through video-conference.

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan chaired the meeting that was also virtually attended by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep S. Puri, Minister of State for Ports, Shipping and Waterways and Fertilizers Mansukh Mandaviya, Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai, and Minister of State for Health Ashwini Kumar Choubey. Vinod K. Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog was present virtually.

At the outset, the Health Minister apprised other members of GOM about the steadily growing trajectory of daily recoveries and also observed that "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."

The number of critical cases thus far includes 4,88,861 patients who required ICU beds, 1,70,841 patients who required ventilator support and 9,02,291 patients who were given oxygen support, the Minister added.

As on date, Vardhan said, 1.34 per cent of the active caseload is in ICU, 0.39 per cent of them are on ventilators and 3.70 per cent of them are on oxygen support.

Vardhan informed the GOM that, "the cumulative number of Covid-19 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," said the Minister, adding a total of 53,25,000 doses are on the pipeline and  will be supplied to the states soon.

He requested the states to set aside 70 per cent of the vaccines received through GoI channel for administration of the second dose.

On the tests being conducted in India, the Health Minister noted that the country has reached a testing capacity of 25,00,000 tests per day. He informed that a total of 30,60,18,044 tests have been conducted so far in India, which includes 18,08,344 tests in the last 24 hours. From just one lab at NIV Pune, the country is presently served by 2,514 labs.