As part of Union Government’s coordinated strategy for effective containment and management of the COVID-19 pandemic, a high level review meeting was chaired by Cabinet Secretary today. Member (Health), NITI Aayog, Union Health Secretary, Secretary, Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, senior officials of the Health Ministry, Ministry of Home Affairs and Chief Secretaries of the 12 State/UTs participated in the review meeting. The 12 States/UT that participated in the VC include Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Chandigarh, Telangana, Kerala, Delhi, Punjab and West Bengal. About 80% of the COVID caseload in the country is concentrated in these States/UTs.

Minister of Commerce & Industry also addressed the States and reviewed the oxygen availability in these states. He specifically requested them to focus on analysing district level and health facility level status and effectively plan and manage logistical issues related with Oxygen availability. He also urged them to share their best practices which in turn can be emulated by other States/UTs in the country.

The Cabinet Secretary while complementing the States for significantly ramping up testing, expressed concern that the case fatality rates of several States are still higher than that of the national average. He urged the States to analyse mortalities district and hospital wise for identification of critical areas of intervention.  He also exhorted the states to ensure optimal utilization of RT-PCR capacity. He underlined the need for ensuring that no symptomatic negative case (tested by Rapid Antigen Tests) is missed and all such cases are mandatorily administered RT-PCR test.

Union Health Secretary presented a detailed status note of COVID-19 on all these states with particular focus on the number of tests being conducted in each State/UT, their positivity rate and their average daily CFR, availability of health infrastructure and their district wise Oxygen availability.

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MV