National COVID goals: Less than 1 pc death rate, under 5 pc positivity

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 21

Even as COVID-19 cases rose beyond 1.5 million on Tuesday, the government said the national goal was to bring fatality rate due to virus below 1 per cent and disease positivity rate below 5 per cent.

Secretary, Ministry of Health, Rajesh Bhushan while sharing India’s COVID-19 status on Tuesday said cases per million in the country were 837, still among the lowest in the world, and deaths per million were 20.4 as against the global average of 77.

“Several countries have death rates per million in the range of 21 to 30 times higher than India’s,” said Bhushan pointing to the country’s progressively declining case fatality rate which now stands at 2.43 per cent as against 3.36 per cent on June 17.

As of Tuesday, the active disease load in India is 4,02,529 as against 7,24,577 recovered cases.

“Case fatality rate should come down below 1 per cent. That is the goal,” Bhushan said on Tuesday.

The Health Ministry official also stated that India’s tests per million figure was improving substantially and had reached 180 tests per day per million.

“At present 30 states are testing more than 180 persons per day per million,” said Bhushan, adding that the rate of testing needed to be seen in conjunction with the positive rate.

India’s overall positivity rate from COVID-19 as of Tuesday is 8.07 per cent with 30 states posting corresponding rates lower than the national average.

“The WHO has said aggressive testing is the biggest tool to contain COVID-19 and that 140 tests per day per million people is comprehensive and should be maintained over a period of time. We have repeatedly told states to test more and not get overawed by the high number of cases,” said Bhushan.

“When you test aggressively cases will rise in the initial phases but once you achieve a high level of testing over a prolonged period positivity rate will eventually fall below 5 per cent. That should be the goal,” he added.

At least eight states which are testing more than 140 persons per day per million have achieved COVID positivity rates of under 5 per cent. These include Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, West Bengal and Karnataka.

“High testing and positivity rates have to be seen together. The purpose of high testing should be to achieve a lower than 5 per cent positivity rate gradually,” said the Ministry.

No community transmission

Rajesh Bhushan also said there was no community transmission in India as of now and the WHO had not laid down any definition of community transmission.

“We still maintain we have clusters of cases and large local outbreaks. For instance in Delhi alone the sero prevalence survey has shown the percentage of people affected ranging from 13 per cent in one district to 27 per cent in another which shows the infection is not uniformly spread.”

“We still maintain there is no community transmission in India. This is an academic debate. What matters is what we do in the field to contain the disease,” he said.