Covid-19: Centre calls India’s situation ‘optimistic’, but warns against complacency

India is currently wading through the third Covid-19 wave, triggered by the highly transmissible Omicron variant. On Thursday, the Centre said the country’s overall pandemic situation was optimistic. However, it warned against complacency, considering the unique challenges the virus still poses in some states.

THE GOOD NEWS

India has witnessed a steady decline in cases reported. Daily new cases have remained under a lakh for the past four days. The positivity rate has also gone down significantly — an indication of decreased spread of infections. Most significantly, the positivity rate has remained below 5%, above which infections are considered to be concerning, for the past three days. The Union Health Ministry has repeatedly directed districts reporting positivity rates above 5% for local containment and surveillance.

In the week ended February 9, 433 districts had positivity rates below 5%. The figure was around 268 in the previous week. This indicates a decrease in the virus’ spread at the district level.

Only 141 districts are reporting positivity rates above 10%. In the previous week, the figure stood at 297 districts.

Twenty-one states are also reporting daily caseload additions fewer than 10,000, while 11 others are reporting active cases between 10,000 and 50,000. This indicates that a majority of states have fewer active cases, indicating that the health system is not overwhelmed by hospitalisations due to severe disease.

THE BAD NEWS

There are four states reporting more than 50,000 active cases — Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu. However, there has been a significant drop in cases even in these states on a weekly basis. There are 200 districts with test positivity rates of 10%.

Approximately 40 districts had witnessed an increase in weekly cases and positivity rates, while 200 districts had a positivity of 10%, Dr VK Paul, chief of India’s Covid-19 task force, told The Indian Express. 

The overall picture is optimistic. However, on closer observation, there are still very critical problems at state and district levels. Dr Paul said India was passing through a transition towards improvement. However, he also warned against lowering guard.

THE CONCERN

The Centre has emphasised that there was still limited understanding of the novel coronavirus and people should expect the virus to be present both in India and globally. Therefore, surveillance, containment, and Covid-appropriate behaviour remain critical despite declining positivity rates.

Dr Paul told The Indian Express that this was not the end of the virus. Being under pressure, the virus will try to emerge fitter in order to find a way to exponentially increase. Therefore, the x-factor should always be considered as the world does not know all there is to know about it, he said.