The Union government has designated 130 districts as ‘red zone’, 284 as ‘orange zone’ and 319 as ‘green zone’. A district is classified as green and orange zones if no new cases of CIVID-19 are reported in the last 21 days. A district is classified ‘red zone’ based on the number of active cases, doubling rate of the confirmed cases, the extent of testing and surveillance feedback.
“There are two reasons for classifying districts into three zones,” says Dr Harsh Vardhan, the Union Health Minister in an interview to CNN News 18's Marya Shakil. “One, it is to take care of the (spread of the) disease in a scientific manner and second is to make sure that we are opening up the economy in a graded and judicious manner,” he elucidated.
Since the lockdown started on March 24, the country has been ramping up testing. On Sunday, 10,46 450 samples were tested, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said.
“We kept revising and modifying the testing strategies depending on the needs. From one lab to carry out testing, we have expanded to a network of 420 laboratories in the country,” said Dr Harsh Vardhan.
He further said that the country plans to ramp up testing further. "In a day, we are testing almost 75,000 people. We have plans to test one lakh people per day now,” he said.
#LIVE – We expect that every state will report every positive case or mortality accurately because it is in their interest and we don’t want a situation which is beyond our control: Union Health Minister @drharshvardhan speaks exclusively to @maryashakil. pic.twitter.com/Ow265QJQJn
— CNNNews18 (@CNNnews18) May 4, 2020
He pointed out that of the samples tested, only 3% were positive cases and that the casualty rate of COVID-19 in Indian was at 3.62%. “Already, 10,000 patients recovered and returned home. A majority are in hospitals and are recovering well. On analysing data, less than 1% of the patients under treatment are on ventilators, 1-2% patients are on oxygen support and 2-3% patients are in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU),” he said, adding that most of the deaths are among those patients with comorbid conditions.
According to Dr Harsh Vardhan, some cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Indore were unable to contain the spread as the residents there did not follow lockdown principles adequately. “That is the reason these cities are not performing well as compared to other cities in the country. Besides, some of these cities bore the maximum brunt of international travellers and have huge slums, where it was practically impossible to implement lockdown principles and physical distancing,” he added.
However, he noted that rural India behaved responsibly than urban India during the lockdown. “Some of the best examples are from panchayats and village heads, who trained, educated and motivated its people, ensured lockdown is followed sincerely and stringently. Even when migrant labourers returned to their villages, the villagers ensured to quarantine them in primary schools and other places outside the villages,” he said.
The Union Minister also pointed out that India is in a position to be part of the World Health Organisation's (WHO) solidarity trials and that it has received 1,000-odd doses of Remdesivir, an antiviral drug. “We will be able to use them in clinical trials in some patients in some states in India,” he added.
Read: COVID-19: Is the drug remdesivir really effective in bringing down recovery time?
India also plans to stop relying on China and other countries for API (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) - the active ingredient in medicines. “Our whole endeavour is to attain self-sufficiency in API, a significant reform that is taking place in India now,” said Dr Harsh Vardhan.