As part of an update on the Covid-19 situation in India, the Union health ministry said on Thursday that 50% of the country’s population is not wearing a mask. At a press conference, health ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal said eight states have more than 1 lakh active Covid-19 cases, nine states have 50,000 to 1 lakh active cases, and 19 states have fewer than 50,000 active cases.
The ministry’s statement on facial masks is based on a survey of 2,000 respondents conducted in 25 cities.
According to a survey cited by the health ministry and shared on Twitter by the ministry of information and broadcasting, 64% of those who do not wear masks cover their mouth but not their nose, 20% have it on their chin, and 2% have it on their neck.
According to the survey, only 14% of people correctly wear the mask, which covers the nose, mouth, chin, and has a clip on the nose.
Meanwhile, according to Agarwal, seven states in the country have a positivity rate of more than 25%, while nine states have a positivity rate of 20-25 percent. He added that 22 states have a positivity rate of more than 15%, 13 states have a positivity rate of five to 15%, and one state has a positivity rate of less than 5%.
According to a health ministry official, Tamil Nadu, Meghalaya, Tripura, Manipur, Nagaland, Sikkim, and Mizoram have seen an increase in cases and positivity in the last three weeks.
He also stated that since mid-February, India has seen a consistent upward trend in weekly tests, with average daily tests increasing by 2.3 times in the last 12 weeks.
In the last 16 months, 2,553 government and private Covid testing laboratories have been established across the country, according to ICMR Director General Balram Bhargava, who was also present at the briefing.
The remark was made on a day when India conducted more than 20.55 lakh tests in a 24-hour period, the most in a single day in the country’s history.
