Those above 45 years got 10.93 lakh doses while 25.59 doses were given to those in the 18 to 45 age group.The ministry of health and family welfare (MoHFW) on Tuesday urged the country to replicate the Pune and Mumbai models to contain and manage the Covid-19 pandemic in the country. There are 533 districts in the country that have a Covid-19 positivity rate of more than 10% and need to impose strict containment measures, Lav Agarwal, joint secretary, MoHFW said.
Currently, 26 states are showing wider spread of the infection and nine states have case positivity rate above 25%, Agarwal said. There are 13 states in the country with one lakh plus cases with Madhya Pradesh joining this list.
Stricter measures followed in Pune such as restriction on mass gatherings, not allowing intermingling of people and closing non-essential activities for a period of 15 days reduced rate of growth of the infection and cases started plateauing, Agarwal said. He highlighted the Mumbai model which managed treatment of Covid-19 patients in a coordinated way which helped citizens access hospital beds, ambulance through decentralized control room at ward levels with a central war room.
Stringent containment had a positive impact on case management in Pune as has been seen in the way runaway spread of infection was brought under control with stringent containment in the city, Agarwal said. The case positivity in the first week of March ’21 was 69.7% when curbing measures such as night curfew was introduced. This night curbs, coupled with 15 days of stringent restriction, brought down the growth trajectory. An extension of restriction by another 15 days which was critical and had an epidemiological significance led to case positivity coming down from 41.8% to 23.4% at present.
In Mumbai, the initiatives taken by the Maharashtra state government and the municipal corporation aided the hospitalisation process and eliminated panic among citizens, Agarwal said. There were 24 control rooms with a main control rooms collecting 10,000 test results daily from 55 labs, sorting it and sharing it with respective wards.
The control room at ward levels had 10 telephone operators, 10 doctors & medical staff, 10 ambulance and 10 dashboards. The medical team was analyzing the positive cases and assessing the need for hospitalisation.
This was coordinated with ambulance services and sent to patients for hospital admissions. For this, around 800 SUVs were refurbished into makeshift ambulances. A software platform was created with the help of Uber and used for coordinating between ambulances. The medical team were paid stipend and offered hotel accommodation. A centralized dashboard of 172 hospitals and Covid facilities was created. A system to procure hospital beds was established.
It these models were adopted and followed there would be a reduction in cases and stall the spread of the infection, he said.
As on Tuesday, the country has 37.15 lakh active cases with 2,49,992 deaths. The data was showing some early signs of reducing or plateauing daily positive case and daily deaths in 18 states. Daily positive cases declined from a high of 4.14 lakh on May 7 to 3.29 lakh on May 11. Daily deaths according to MoHFW data had come down from 4,092 on May 9 to 3,754 on May 11.
On the vaccination front, the country administered 17.27 lakh doses with 13.55 first dose and 3.72 lakh second doses. Those above 45 years got 10.93 lakh doses while 25.59 doses were given to those in the 18 to 45 age group.
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