Daily tally of Covid-19 cases declines to 1.32 lakh from peak of 4.14 lakh in May 

The number of reported Covid-19 cases across the country has witnessed a steady decline, with daily cases coming down from the peak of 4.14 lakh on May 7 to 1.32 lakh on June 4. Lav Agarwal, joint secretary, ministry of health and family welfare, on Friday said the positivity rate was also seeing a steady decline across the country. The positivity rate has come down from 21.62% in the first week of May to 7.2% in the first week of June.  Around 66% of the new cases were coming only from five states, indicating that the infections were under control. The remaining states are reporting less than 5,000 cases a day, Agarwal said.

In the last 24 hours, 32 states have seen more recoveries than the new reported cases figures. The number of districts reporting more than 100 cases daily was down from 538 at the peak to 257 districts at the moment, and are showing progressive decline. A reduction in daily active cases was achieved after 50 days.  V K Paul, member, health, Niti Aayog, pointed out that Covid cases in India, if adjusted for population, were relatively modest when compared with global data. India had only 20,517 cases per million population. In comparison, the world average was higher at 22,181 cases per million population.

UK was at 65,900 cases and US was at 1,02, 269 cases. Paul said India’s death per million population was at 245, while world average was 477 deaths per million. Brazil was at 2,100 deaths and US was at 1,838 deaths.

This situation was a result of strong action taken by the governments at all levels. Restrictions imposed in many districts, and factors like no crowds or large gatherings anywhere and people wearing masks diligently have worked for the good, Paul said

There’s been a ramp up in testing as well. All this could be reversed if the same discipline, containment measures and vaccination is not scaled up, Paul said. If people start acting as recklessly as they did in January and February, the virus would come back and higher would the next curve, Paul warned. “We have to buy time till we can achieve a high coverage of vaccination and that is the duration of discipline we want,” Paul said.

It is necessary to continue with containment measures and clinical management efforts to maintain the decline in positivity rate and new cases, he said.