India’s daily spike in coronavirus cases witnessed a dip with 263,533 fresh infections recorded in 24 hours, as per the Health Ministry data on Tuesday. However, the number of deaths due to Covid-19 continued to remain alarmingly high with 4,329 more fatalities recorded, the highest toll in a single day since the pandemic began.
India’s total tally of coronavirus cases now stands at 25.23 million, as per the Health Ministry data, including 2,15,96,512 recoveries, 33,53,765 active cases and 2,78,719 deaths.
On a more positive note, the country on Tuesday also recorded over 4 lakh recoveries in a single day for the first time, informed Lav Aggarwal, Joint Secretary in the Union Health Ministry. “422,436 recoveries were reported in the last 24 hours, the highest-ever for the country. A clear positive trend can be observed in Covid-19 recoveries,” said Aggarwal at a press conference. The Joint Secretary stated that on May 3, the recovery rate was 81.7 percent, which has increased to 85.6 percent now.
According to the Union Health Ministry, 1.8 percent of India’s total population has been affected by the disease so far. However, the government said that about 98% of India’s population of 1.3 billion remains susceptible to infections.
During an interaction with field officials from states and districts on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi pointed out that the number of Covid-19 infections is decreasing in many states, but increasing in several others. “In this second wave of corona, we still have to pay a lot of attention in rural and inaccessible areas,” he said.
“We need to be more vigilant in the face of decreasing data. In almost every meeting in the last one year, it has been my request that our fight is to save every single life,” he said, stressing on local containment zones and aggressive testing and underlining “testing, tracking, treatment and Covid-appropriate behavior” as necessary to defeat the virus.
“You all are playing a very important role in the battle against corona. In a way, you are the field commanders of this battle. What are our weapons against this virus? Our weapons are local containment zones, aggressive testing and correct and complete information to the people,” he said.
“We also have to stop the infection and maintain the supply of essential supplies related to daily life…Rapid work is being done to install oxygen plants in hospitals in every district of the country through PM CARES. These plants have already started functioning in many hospitals,” the PM added.
He also said the country needs to fight the myths associated with vaccination as it is a powerful way to fight Covid-19.
A total of 18,44,53,149 doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered across the country so far. However, with the drop in new cases of Covid-19, a dip in the number of vaccinations has also been reported. Over the last month, vaccinations have dropped from 32.7 lakh to 6.9 lakh. Moreover, several states have had to limit the vaccination drive due to shortages of vaccines.
According to official data, the number of tests being conducted is also not increasing further. As per the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), a total of 31,82,92,881 samples have been tested for Covid-19 up to May 17. Out of these, 18,69,223 samples were tested on Monday.
Ten states including Karnataka, Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh cumulatively account for 75.04 percent of India’s total active cases, the ministry had informed on Monday.
So far, only the US has reported more cases or a worse single-day death toll than India. However, while the epidemic peaked in the US months ago, there is uncertainty whether India has.
Even though official numbers show a dip in new infections, there are concerns that more cases of the highly infectious new B.1.617 variant may be going unreported due to low testing.