(Contains Press releases concerning Covid-19, issued in last 24 hours, inputs from PIB Field Offices and Fact checks undertaken by PIB)

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India continues to be among the countries with lowest per million cases & per million deaths, and high testing, Sustains trend of consistent low level of Active Cases, 55,342 New Cases in the last 24 hours

India has sustained its global position of being the country with one of the lowest cases per million and reported deaths per million. While the global figure for cases/million is 4,794, India is clocking 5,199. UK, Russia, South Africa, USA and Brazil are reporting higher number. The deaths/million in India are 79, while the world average is 138. In the matter of total tests conducted, India is one of the topmost countries. With 10,73,014 tests in last 24 hour, the cumulative number of tests conducted stand at 8.89 Cr (8,89,45,107). 55,342 new cases have been registered in the last 24 hours in the country. From last five weeks, there is a continuous decline in the average daily new cases. The weekly average of daily new cases fell from 92,830 cases in the 2^nd week of September to 70,114 cases in 2^nd week of October. India continues to report a trend of steadily decreasing active cases. Presently the active cases comprise merely 11.69% of the total positive cases of the country standing at 8,38,729. The active cases have been below the 9 lakh mark for the fifth consecutive day. 76% of new confirmed cases are from 10 States and UTs. Karnataka has overtaken Maharashtra with the highest number of new reported cases. Both still are contributing more than 7,000 new cases. The States which are reporting spurt in cases are Karnataka, Kerala, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh. 77,760 new recoveries were added in the last 24 hour. With this, the total number of recoveries has crossed 62 Lakh (62,27,295). Higher number of single day recoveries is also reflected in the continuous increase in the national recovery rate, which is at present 86.78%. 78% of the new recovered cases are in 10 States/UTs. Maharashtra contributes more than 15,000 to the single day recovery followed by Karnataka with more than 12,000 recoveries. The number of fatalities due to COVID-19 has been lower than 1000 mark for ten successive days. 706 case fatalities have been reported in the past 24 hours. Of these, nearly 79% are concentrated in ten States/UTs. More than 23% of new fatalities reported are from Maharashtra (165 deaths).

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Dr Harsh Vardhan chairs 21st meeting of Group of Ministers (GOM) on COVID-19

Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister of Health & Family Welfare chaired the 21th meeting of the high-level Group of Ministers (GoM) on COVID-19 by a video-conference, today. He was joined by Dr S. Jaishankar, Minister of External Affairs and Sh. Hardeep S. Puri, Minister of Civil Aviation. Sh. Mansukh Lal Mandaviya, Minister of State, Shipping (Independent Charge), Chemicals and Fertilizers, Sh. Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Minister of State, Health & Family Welfare and Dr. Vinod K Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog joined virtually. Dr. Harsh Vardhan informed his colleagues of the sturdy public health response mounted by India in its fight against the pandemic and the encouraging results so far. He said, “With 62,27,295 recovered cases, India has the highest recovery rate of 86.78% in the world. Fatality Rate of 1.53% is the lowest in the world and we are reporting the three-days Doubling Time has been successfully raised to 74.9 days.” “A total of 1927 labs at present have led to an upsurge in testing. India’s testing capacity has been hiked to 1.5 million tests per day. Close to11 lakh samples were tested in the last 24 hours,” he added. The Health Minister reiterated his concern and appeal to everyone regarding observance of COVID appropriate behaviour during the forthcoming festival season and the winter months, when the likelihood of an increase in the disease is high. “The Hon. Prime Minister has launched the countrywide Jan Andolan to encourage people to adopt and encourage COVID appropriate behaviours to curb spread of the diseases while celebrating the festivals”, he stated.

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Health Ministry’s telemedicine service, eSanjeevani, completes 5 lakh tele-consultations; eSanjeevani OPD now hosts 216 online OPDs

eSanjeevani, Ministry of Health’s telemedicine initiative, is rapidly gaining popularity amongst patients and doctors. It has recorded 5 lakh teleconsultations in a short span of time. The last one lakh consultations were completed in a record time of 17 days. As a digital modality of healthcare services delivery, eSanjeevani is gradually shaping into a parallel stream for the Indian healthcare delivery system with the number of teleconsultations per day on the platform touching 8,000 mark in the last few days. At present 26 States are using eSanjeevani’s two variants of telemedicine namely - doctor to doctor (eSanjeevaniAB-HWC) and patient to doctor (eSanjeevaniOPD).  eSanjeevani AB-HWC was launched by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in November 2019 and it is to be implemented at 1,55,000 Health and Wellness Centres in conjunction with identified Medical College hospitals under Govt. of India’s Ayushman Bharat Scheme in ‘Hub & Spoke’ model by December 2022. eSanjeevaniAB-HWC is functional at around 4,000 Health and Wellness Centres and onboarding of an equal number of HWCs is underway. At present, eSanjeevaniOPD is hosting 26 general OPDs and 190 speciality and super-speciality OPDs. Around 20,000 doctors and health-workers across the country have been trained on both the variants of eSanjeevani. The top ten States which have registered highest consultations through eSanjeevani and eSanjeevaniOPD platforms are Tamil Nadu (169977), Uttar Pradesh (134992), Himachal Pradesh (39326), Kerala (39300), Andhra Pradesh (31365), Uttarakhand (16442), Madhya Pradesh (14965), Gujarat (10839), Karnataka (9498), Maharashtra (7895).

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Regional Raw Drug Repository for AYUSH Systems launched at Chennai today

Shri Shripad Yesso Naik, Union Minister for AYUSH inaugurated the Regional Raw Drug Repository (RRDR) for ASU&H Medicine (Southern Plateau Region) at National Institute of Siddha today through a virtual event. Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha, Secretary Ministry of AYUSH presided over the program. RRDRs are important components of the Centrally Sponsored Scheme of National AYUSH Mission, which plays an important role in medicinal plants cultivation. As a step in this direction, Ministry of AYUSH, through the National Medicinal Plants Board, initiated establishment of National Raw Drug Repository and Regional Raw Drug Repositories. NMPB have identified National Institute of Siddha as the lead Institute with the Regional Research Institute of Unani Medicine, Chennai and the Siddha Central Research Institute, Chennai as the Collaborating Institutes. This RRDR would play a stellar role in collection, documentation, and authentication of raw drugs collected from the agro-climatic region, that is, the Southern Plateau Region.

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SAI and NRAI to jointly take responsibility to ensure national shooting camp goes ahead in a secure bio-bubble

The National Shooting Camp for core Olympic shooters will be taking place at Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range as announced last week for a period of two months (October 15-December 17). In order to maintain a secure bio-bubble whereby the athletes can train safely and to prevent a coronavirus outbreak, the responsibility of maintaining the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) will be shared by the Sports Authority of India and the National Rifle Association of India. Responsibility for maintaining the shooting range lies with the Administrator, Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range. To maintain safety, zoning of premises by nature of risk category to minimize the contact between campers and range personnel has been planned into Green, Orange, Yellow and Red Zones. The NRAI will make boarding and lodging arrangements at a hotel nearby the venue, for which SAI will provide support as per existing norms. From the hotel to the entry to the shooting range, it will be the responsibility of the NRAI to maintain the SOP in order to keep a secure bio-bubble. NRAI has formulated the quarantine process wherein shooters/coaches coming from outside the Delhi-NCR will be quarantined at the hotel for the duration of 7 days.

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RTI disposal rate during COVID period was higher as compared to the same period during last year: Dr. Jitendra Singh

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge), Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh said today that the RTI (Right to Information) cases recorded higher disposal rate during the COVID period of last 6 months compared to the same period during last year. Briefing on the completion of 15 years of the RTI Act, which came into force on 12 October 2005, Dr Jitendra Singh quoted figures to state that in the last financial year of 2019-20 during the period between March to September 76.49% of RTI cases were disposed of. During the financial year of 2020-21, during the same period of March to September, the disposal rate went up to as much as 93.98 %. Going by the whole numbers, he said, during the same period in last year 8962 cases were disposed of, out of total 11716 registered cases. This year, 8015 cases were disposed of out of the total of 8528.

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INPUTS FROM PIB FIELD OFFICES

• Punjab: Punjab Government has decided to reopen schools and coaching institutions in a graded manner after 15.10.2020 subject to some conditions. On-line/distance learning shall continue to be the preferred mode of teaching and be encouraged. Apart from this, students of only classes 9th to 12th are permitted to attend schools/institutions with the parental consent of each student and without making attendance compulsory.
• Himachal Pradesh: Chief Minister has urged the people of the State to be the part of “Mask Up Campaign” of Government of India by using face mask while going out of their homes to avoid spread of the Covid-19 virus and protect themselves and their family from this virus. He further urged the people of the State to   stay safe by taking some simple precautions, such as physical distancing, wearing ace mask, keeping rooms well ventilated, avoiding crowds, cleaning their hands etc.
• Kerala: Following talks held by District Collector with trade bodies, traders in Kozhikode have called off their proposed shut down protest on Thursday against closing of shops in the name of Covid containment measures. They allege that containment zones are being declared arbitrarily and unscientifically. The AC high-speed boats of Waterways department which had been suspended following the outbreak of Covid-19 are now back in service following opening up of tourist destinations in the state.    Meanwhile, 5,930 new Covid-19 cases were reported in Kerala yesterday, after lesser number of samples was tested. Currently 94,388 patients are undergoing treatment and 2.81 lakh people under observation across the state. The official death toll is 1025.
• Tamil Nadu: Tourists to be tested for Covid-19 as Puducherry sees influx amid easing of restrictions; medical teams will be stationed on Beach Road for testing the tourists. Tamil Nadu clocks investments worth over Rs 41k crore; till September the State had garnered investments worth Rs 31,464 crore through 42 pacts. Fresh cases in Tamil Nadu dropped below the 5,000 mark for the first time in 83 days on Monday when the state recorded 4,879 cases, which took the case tally to 6,61,264 cases. The 62 deaths recorded took the cumulative toll to 10,314. Active cases too dipped marginally to 43,747.
• Karnataka: State government cites Covid surge, urges SEC to put off Gram Panchayat polls. Tumakuru hospital gets oxygen plant: the designated Covid hospital in Tumakuru district finally has its own liquid oxygen plant that will ensure supply of the life-saving gas to ICU patients. New Health Minister Dr.K. Sudhakar along with Social Welfare Minister B Sriramulu met Chief Minister and discussed about control of covid in the state.
• Andhra Pradesh: Chief Minister promises to give Rs 5 lakh to the families of the deceased journalists due to coronavirus. Special beds have been set up for those journalists taking treatment for Covid-19. In a major development Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) retracted its earlier decision of allowing limited pilgrims for Navaratri Brahmotsavams scheduled from October 16 to 24 and decided to conduct Navaratri Brahmotsavams in Ekantham (loneliness). Meanwhile, the State registered record low coronavirus cases as on Monday with as many as 3224 new cases reported taking the total tally to 7,56,056 cases and 32 fatalities.
• Telangana: 1708 new cases, 2009 recoveries & 5 deaths reported in the last 24 hours; out of 1708 cases, 277 cases reported from GHMC. Total cases: 2,14,792; Active cases: 24,208; Deaths: 1233; Discharges :1,89, 351. Shortage of manpower may be a cause of worry for the Health Department, which on Monday gave orders to resume all non-Covid services across government hospitals in Telangana. In a majority of the hospitals, the shortage is being seen in three departments - General Medicine, Anaesthesia and Pulmonology.
• Assam: In Assam, 1,457 patients are discharged yesterday, State Health Minister tweeted that total discharged patients 1,66,036 & active patients 28,439.
• Mizoram: 18 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Mizoram yesterday. Total cases 2,202, active cases 156.
• Nagaland: With 221 new cases, Nagaland's COVID positive cases reach 7,240. Active cases are 1,493 while 5,754 persons have recovered.
• Sikkim:  Sikkim records 57th COVID death and seven new cases.

FACT CHECK

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