DW BUREAU / chandigarh The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today described the steep rates fixed for treatment of COVID - 19 by private hospitals as a sell out to the private sector and demanded they be revised immediately in public interest. "The astronomical rates for treatment of COVID - 19 has taken private treatment for COVID - 19 out of the purview of the common man who has been put at the mercy of private hospital management," senior SAD leader Dr Daljit Singh Cheema said in a press release here.The SAD leader said the government had fixed rates between Rs15000 to Rs 18,000 per day as treatment cost in private hospitals. He said while this fee was difficult to give for even one family member if hospitalised, there was no way a middle class family could give these charge for hospitalisation of two to three members of a family. Dr Cheema said it was common knowledge that there were no facilities available for treatment at government facilities and late Padamsri Bhai Nirmal Singh had suffered because of lack of such facilities. He said in such circumstances the Punjab government should bear cost of treatment of the middle class and poor sections of society. He also reminded the government that the SAD-BJP government had taken the responsibility for treatment of cancer patients on itself and it used to give Rs. 1.5 lakh per patient to the hospital on behalf of each patient had had spent Rs. 470 under this head. He said similarly during SAD- BJP tenure the government bore expenses of treatment of Hepatitis C and 39,000 patients availed benefit of the scheme. With a record single-day surge of 34,956 cases, India's COVID-19 tally zoomed past ten lakh on Friday, just three days after it crossed the nine-lakh mark, according to the Union Health Ministry data. The total coronavirus caseload in the country surged to 10,03,832, while death toll mounted to 25,602 with the highest number of 687 fatalities recorded in a day, the data updated at 8 am on Friday showed. A total of 22,942 people recuperated in the past 24 hours, the highest number of recoveries in a day, taking the total number of recovered cases to 6,35,756, while there are 3,42,473 active COVID-19 cases presently. "Thus, around 63.33 per cent of patients have recovered so far," an official said. It took 110 days for the COVID-19 cases in the country to reach one lakh and just 59 days more to go past the nine-lakh mark. This is the sixth consecutive day when the cases increased by more than 28,000. According to ICMR, a cumulative total of 1,30,72,718 samples have been tested up to July 16 with 3,33,228 samples being tested on Thursday. India ranks 106th with 658 cases per million. Cases per million population in India are 4 to 8 times less than European countries. COVID-19 cases per million in Russia and US are 8 and 16 times respectively the corresponding figure. (editor@dailyworld.in)