COVID-19 Cases in India Close to 20,000, Death Toll at 640

India's total number of coronavirus positive cases rose to 19,984,on Wednesday, 22 April, including 15,474 active cases, 3,870 cured/discharged/migrated patients and 640 deaths, according to the figures released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

With testing being ramped up to identify COVID-19 patients, the efficacy of China-made rapid antibody blood test kits has come under scanner with Rajasthan on Tuesday flagging their "inaccurate results", prompting the apex medical research body ICMR to ask states to stop these tests for two days for further validation.

While the nationwide tally of confirmed infections neared 20,000 with new cases reported from various states and the death toll crossed 600, the Union Health Ministry officials also said the recovery rate has improved to 17.5 percent and a record number of 705 patients were cured and discharged on Monday itself.

At a daily press briefing on the COVID-19 situation, Home Ministry Joint Secretary Punya Salila Srivastava said the Centre has sent teams under Disaster Management Act to four states -- Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal. While Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan are extending full support, the government in West Bengal is not doing so, she said.

While new cases were also reported from various states including Odisha and Kerala -- where the infection spread has been relatively slower -- as many as 115 families residing at the President's Estate in the national capital have also been put under self-isolation as a preventive measure after a sanitation worker's relative tested positive for the deadly coronavirus.

A Rashtrapati Bhavan communique, however, clarified that till date no employee of the President's secretariat has tested positive and the secretariat along with the local administration is taking all the preventive measures under the government guidelines.

A COVID-19 positive patient from central Delhi, who was neither an employee of the President's secretariat nor a resident of the President's Estate, had died on 13 April and after contact tracing it was found that a family member of an employee of the President's secretariat had been in contact with the deceased, the statement said. The employee and his family members are residents of the President's Estate.