Irresponsible people not following norms driving Covid in India; masks lower deaths: ICMR

ICMR DG Dr Balram stated that "irresponsible people" who were t following rms to prevent spre of COVID-19 were driving Coronavirus pandemic in India. Dr Bhargava Balram in a news conference on Tuesday said that re are two s of people - people who feel that re is need to be frightened from pandemic and ors who are very cautious.

'Less cautious people are driving pandemic'

"I would t say younger or older people, inste--I would say, irresponsible people who are t using face masks, t maintaining social distaining are ones who are driving pandemic in India," Dr Bhargava said. "I think you may find cases in people who are very cautious as well. But y (cautious people) are t driving pandemic, but it is less cautious people who are driving pandemic," he said.

Echoing ICMR chief, Dr Raman Kumar, President of Acemy of Family Physicians of India, said, re is eugh evidence to suggest that wearing masks plays a preventive role against COVID-19.

"Studies have confirmed that places where people followed mask-wearing habits, re were lower COVID-19 cases and a lower number of deaths were reported. When people remove masks casually and don't wear m in crowded places, y t only put mselves in risk of infection but also become an infection threat for ors. It is important that people make mask wearing a routine to win war against COVID 19," he said.

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'Capacity to conduct one million tests per day'

ICMR DG also informed that India's testing capacity has increased significantly from 10 tests to 10 lakh tests per day and all ministries have worked to achieve this. Dr Bhargava said 1,524 testing labs in country have a capacity of conducting one million tests per day and number of testing kits me in country has also gone up significantly.

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Meanwhile, India in last 24 hours reported 60,975 COVID-19 cases, taking its overall coronavirus tally 31,67,324, said Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Tuesday. total cases include 7,04,348 active cases and 24,04,585 patients cured/discharged/migrated. India in last 24 hours has reported 848 deaths in last 24 hours due to COVID-19 taking overall toll to 58,390 deaths.

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(With ncy inputs)