Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope said on Thursday that the State’s doubling rate for COVID-19 cases has slowed down to six days from two days at an earlier stage of the pandemic’s outbreak.
Even though the State’s fatality rate is higher than others, about 83% of deaths are due to pre-existing conditions like diabetes, blood pressure, heart or kidney disease, Mr. Tope said, stressing that over 51,000 tests have been conducted so far, half of them in Mumbai.
Voicing concern about the State receiving just one lakh N-95 masks out of the eight lakh it had sought from the Centre, Mr. Tope said only 30,000 PPE kits had been provided by the Centre so far.
The State has sought the ICMR’s nod for pool testing and rapid testing, and is also seeking the Centre’s nod for plasma treatment (using cured patients’ plasma to create anti-bodies in positive cases).
Six more labs are going to be added to the existing list of approved testing facilities for the virus, which includes 21 government-run and 15 private labs, the Minister said.
