Coronavirus India: Luv Agarwal said the country has to learn living with the virus. (Representational)
The centre on Friday said it will provide to the states fresh lists of districts falling under the Red, Green and Orange zones. Senior Health Ministry official Lav Agarwal, in his daily press briefing, said categorising districts under different coronavirus zones depends on various factors, including the number of active cases and doubling rate. He also said the country will have to learn to live with the virus.
"Red-Green-Orange zones depend on active cases, doubling rate and the number of tests. We are going to provide revised list to the states. Two days back, the doubling rate was 12 days. But we saw doubling rates have reduced with spike in cases," he said.
"Some states have shown a spike in the number of cases. It is important for us to ensure that we strengthen our efforts in associating with the states. We have to ensure that guidelines are followed in the field," he added.
Talking about the coronavirus lockdown, he said the country has to learn to live with the virus.
"Today, it is important that when we are talking of relaxations and return of migrant workers, then there is a big challenge in front of us which we have to understand. We have to also learn to live with the virus. And when we are talking about learning to live with the virus, then the preventive guidelines against the virus need to be implemented as a behavioural change," he was quoted by news agency ANI as saying.
"We should determine how the cases are developing. We have doubling rate at 10 days. We have to figure out which states and cities have lesser doubling rate. We coordinate with the states to increase the doubling rate and plan to reduce the number of cases. A failure in even one area, will mar our collective effort," he added.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had last week urged the centre to considering lifting lockdown from the national capital, and had said people would have to learn to live with the virus.
India has reported 3,390 new coronavirus cases and 103 deaths in the past 24 hours, according to government data released on Friday, taking the total number of COVID-19 cases in the country to 56,342 and deaths to 1,886.
The recovery rate is 29.35 per cent with 1,273 - a record number - having been successfully treated in 24 hours. Overall, 16,540 people have been discharged from hospitals after receiving treatment.
With inputs from ANI