Context: The Supreme Court constituted a 12-member task force to assess availability and distribution of medical oxygen - on scientific, rational and equitable basis - across the country. The task force will also suggest measures to ensure availability of medicines needed to treat COVID-19.
Key Points

• The rationale for constituting a Task Force at a national level is to facilitate a public health response to the pandemic based on scientific and specialised domain knowledge.
• The task force has been mandated to work on assessing and making recommendations for the entire country based on the need for, availability and distribution of medical oxygen and formulating and devising the methodology for the allocation of medical oxygen to the States and UTs on a scientific, rational and equitable basis.
• The task force will also make recommendations on augmenting the available supplies of oxygen, facilitate audits to determine whether the supplies allocated by the Union Government reach the State/UT concerned.

It will also review and suggest measures necessary for 

• ensuring the availability of essential drugs and medicines; 
• plan and adopt remedial measures for ensuring preparedness to meet present and future emergencies which may arise during the pandemic; 
• promote evidence based research to enhance effective responses to the pandemic and 
• facilitate the sharing of best practices across the nation to promote knowledge about the management of the pandemic and treatment of cases.