DW BUREAU /chandigarh Amid rising COVID-19 cases in Punjab, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Monday directed the Health department to step up local production of medical oxygen to supplement the current supplies. The move was taken to ensure that there is no shortage of oxygen to tackle any future crisis, officials said here.Till now, Punjab was procuring all its medical oxygen supplies from other states which include Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana. However, as cases continue to spike and several parts of the country report shortage of oxygen, the chief minister said there is a need to generate additional supplies through internal manufacturing. In line with this decision, the Health department has so far issued licence to an industrial oxygen supplier in Punjab to produce medical oxygen, while six packaging units have been allowed to pack oxygen for medical use, an official statement said here. The state now has an internal capacity to produce 800 medical oxygen cylinders and package 2,000 units per day, and the government hopes that with the supplies already being procured from other states, this would help cope with any further escalation in demand in the coming weeks, it said. The state government has also appointed a nodal officer to monitor the supply and demand of medical oxygen amid spiralling cases of COVID-19, and the chief minister has asked the Health department to ensure that indigenous production and packaging is further scaled up to meet any eventuality, the statement said. During a virtual meeting to assess the situation arising out of the pandemic, the chief minister directed the department to ensure that there is no shortage of oxygen for treatment of COVID patients in the state, it added. Singh was informed that the state currently has adequate supplies of oxygen to meet the demand triggered by an increasing number of COVID cases, the statement said. He was told that of the 6,653 COVID-19 patients admitted to government medical colleges in the state, 5,269 have recovered and been discharged and 550 still under treatment. Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan apprised the meeting that Punjab is following the 10-day discharge policy as per ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) guidelines. Further, to manage the increasing number of cases, it has been decided to add 50 level-3 beds at the Faridkot Medical College, she said. A special invitee to the meeting, Ambuj Roy, professor of cardiology, AIIMS, who has been studying the mortality figures in Punjab, said the possibility of mutation of the virus was being looking into. Roy said the majority of the COVID-19 deaths in Punjab took place after August 6. At 2.96 per cent, the Case Fatality Rate (CFR) in Punjab was higher than the national average of 1.65 per cent, as was the deaths per million at 78.5 (national average 58.3), he noted. He said Punjab's positivity rate of 5.72 per cent was much better than the national average of 8.47 per cent. (editor@dailyworld.in)