<span style="color: #222222;">The recovery rate of COVID-19 patients has improved to 38.29 per cent in the country. A total of 96,169 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the country so far in which 36,824 persons have been cured while 3,029 deaths have occurred. In last 24 hours, 2,715 patients are reported cured.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">In terms of confirmed cases per lakh population, India has so far about 7.1 cases per lakh population vis-a-vis around 60 cases per lakh population for the world as a whole. In Spain, it is 494 cases per lakh population, in US 431 cases, in Italy 372 cases, in Germany 210 cases, in UK 361 cases and in France 209 cases per lakh population. Russia has 195 cases per lakh population, Turkey has 180 cases, Iran has 145 and Brazil has 104 cases per lakh population.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">Central Government is pursuing its pre-emptive and pro-active approach for prevention, containment and management of COVID-19. COVID-19 management efforts are being regularly reviewed and monitored at the highest level. Union Health Ministry has issued new guidelines to the states for categorization of red, orange and green zones. </span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">As per these guidelines states have been asked to categorize districts, municipal corporations, or if warranted sub-division and ward or any other administrative unit as red, orange and green zone as per their field assessment. </span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">This has to be done based on multi-factorial analysis on the combination of the parameters namely, total active cases, active cases per lakh population, doubling rate, case fatality rate, testing ratio and test confirmation rate. States have been told to ensure stringent implementation of the containment plans in these containment zones.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">In the containment zones, active search for cases through the house to house surveillance by special teams, testing of all cases as per sampling guidelines, contact tracing, clinical management of all confirmed cases are the priority tasks. Active involvement of community should be sought in this regard. Further, around each containment zone, a Buffer Zone has to be delineated so as to ensure that infection does not spread to the adjoining areas.</span><br />''