The death toll due to the coronavirus infection rose to 7,466 and the cases mounted to 2,66,598 in the country.
The top court said the private hospitals including laboratories have an important role to play in containing the scale of the pandemic by extending philanthropic services in the hour of national crisis.
Concern is growing among healthcare experts who believe that if people do not follow the lockdown or social distancing seriously, the situation can quickly go out of control.
'On January 17, we had our first meeting with the Cabinet secretary.' 'Different secretaries belonging to different departments attended it.' 'It was only two weeks when China had said there is a new disease.' 'So, we gave the quickest response.'
'Don't panic. Believe in yourself.' 'This is a preventable illness. Only you can prevent it.'
The joint secretary also said a high-level task force to work on frontiers of science related to vaccines and drug testing was formed on Sunday.
This apart, to further increase capacities, Bharat Biotech has partnered with Indian Immunologicals (IIL) to manufacture the drug substance for Covaxin. The technology transfer process is underway and IIL has the 'capabilities and expertise' to manufacture the inactivated viral vaccines at commercial scale.
These dedicated COVID-19 facilities will have a capacity of 1,06,719 isolation beds and 12,024 ICU beds reserved for such patients in the country.
'In countries like Japan, one out of 11.7 tests turns out to be positive, which is among the highest in the world. Italy tests 6.7 persons for one positive test while the USA tests 5.3 persons and the United Kingdom 3.4'
'What proportion of the people require the vaccine for us to manage this entire COVID-19 situation?'
The government said there was no immediate plan to extend the 21-day lockdown period, which entered its sixth day on Monday, while the Indian Army dismissed as "fake" social media posts about a possible emergency declaration next month.
'Rolling out the vaccine is not a major challenge in India.'
The highest number of confirmed cases are from Maharashtra (748), followed by Tamil Nadu at 571 and Delhi with 523 cases. Cases in Telangana have gone up to 321, in Kerala to 314, in Uttar Pradesh to 305, while the number of cases has gone up to 274 in Rajasthan.
A total of 27,920 people have been cured of the disease with 1,685 in the last 24 hours, taking the recovery rate to 34.06 per cent, the ministry said.
'All the vaccines that are available in most countries, right now, are all highly effective and safe.'
The development came a day after the protesting farmers rejected the Centre's offer to start talks as soon as they move to Burari and continued to stay put Singhu and Tikri borders of the national capital.
There are so many, discovers Pallavi Aman Singh.
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