Kerala accounts for 52% of the cumulative active Covid-19 cases in the country, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Thursday.
Addressing a press briefing on Covid-19, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said that the number of cases is declining in Kerala, but the state still contributes to a substantial number of total cases in the country. “Kerala has highest active cases—144,000 which is 52% of total active cases of the country. Maharashtra has 40,000 active cases, Tamil Nadu has 17,000, Mizoram has 16,800, Karnataka has 12,000 and Andhra Pradesh has a little more than 11,000 active cases,” he said.
As recoveries from Covid continue to outnumber the daily fresh cases, Bhushan pointed out that the national recovery rate has reached almost 98%. “Active cases are going down across the country and the cumulative recovery rate is rising. At present, the country has a recovery rate of almost 98%,” he said.
“Number of tests done every day has not been reduced. It is still between 15 lakh to 16 lakh tests a day. The rate of positivity is coming down. This is the 13th week continuously when the weekly positivity rate stands below 3%. But our target should be to bring down this rate further. The state governments must target this,” he added. The Health Secretary said that 18 districts in India are reporting a weekly positivity between 5-10%.
Meanwhile, India reported 23,529 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours. India’s active caseload stands at 277,020, which is the lowest in the last 195 days. The active cases account for less than 1% of total cases, currently at 0.82%, the lowest since March 2020.
According to the health ministry, the recovery of 28,718 patients in the last 24 hours has taken the cumulative tally of recovered patients since the beginning of the pandemic to 33,014,898. The cumulative death toll due to Covid-19 reached 448,062.
Meanwhile, government sources said that India would have 27-28 crore Covid-19 vaccine doses of Serum Institute of India’s Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin in October. 27-28 crore Covid-19 vaccines doses that are to be procured do not include Biological E and Zydus Cadilla vaccines doses, the sources said.
Earlier in September, India procured more than 25 crore doses of Covid-19 vaccine doses, added the sources. The Centre plans to achieve the target of administering 100 crore Covid-19 jabs before mid-October. The target of 100 crore doses administration is expected to be achieved between 10 October to 12 October, stated the sources.
“Once we hit the 100 crore dose, we are planning celebrations across the country with Covid warriors, frontline workers and healthcare workers,” the sources said. The country has administered 883,470,578 vaccine doses so far under the nationwide vaccination drive, out of which 6,534,306 doses were administered in the last 24 hours. On 18 September, India set a world record by administering 2.5 crore Covid-19 vaccine doses in a single day.