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Active Covid-19 cases in India fall, lowest since June 2020
Experts, however, warned that despite this turnaround, people cannot afford to let their guard down.
The number of active cases of Covid-19 across India have dropped to 135,918 as of Sunday, the lowest since June 2020, or in more than a year-and-a-half, according to government data.
Active cases – those Covid-19 patients still infected, and thus under treatment – is a crucial metric to track because it directly reflects the pressure on the health care system in any region. The last time India had fewer active cases was on May 11, 2020, when the pandemic was just starting off in the country.
“The active caseload is presently at 135,918 is lowest in 522 days (17 months). Active cases presently constitute 0.39% of the country’s total positive cases, which is lowest since March 2020,” said Union health ministry in a statement issued on Sunday.
Experts, however, warned that despite this turnaround, people cannot afford to let their guard down.
“The hospitalisation of Covid positive cases has also reduced significantly. While this is a positive trend, we cannot still afford to drop our guard as it is a highly transmissible infectious disease that we are dealing with. Covid-appropriate still behaviour needs to be strictly adhered to,” said a senior government official aware of the matter, on condition of anonymity.
The health ministry attributes the trend of drop in new infections to sustained and collaborative efforts by the Centre and the states and Union territories.
At 1.01% currently, the weekly positivity rate has also shown a significant decline. The weekly positivity rate has been less than 2% for the past 51 days. The World Health Organization that any region with appropriate testing levels and with a positivity rate of below 5% can be said to be adequately controlling its outbreak.
“The number of people needing hospitalisation has come down; vaccination has most likely played a role [in this], and it has been well-established through various studies and also looking at the real-world vaccination data that disease severity and death is significantly reduced following vaccination,” said Dr GC Khilnani, chairman, PSRI Institute of pulmonary critical care and sleep medicine, Delhi.
On Sunday, there were 10,431 new infections reported across the country, according to HT’s Covid-19 dashboard.
India has administered first dose of Covid-19 vaccine to at least 80% of the adults, and nearly 39% have been fully vaccinated. The Centre is focusing its efforts on devising measures to ensure the remaining population gets vaccinated as early as possible. The states have been asked to administer at least first vaccine dose to 90% of the eligible population by end of November.
Till date, India has administered a total of 1.12 billion doses of the vaccine to over 750 million people since the time national Covid immunisation programme was launched in the country on January 16, 2021.
“India’s Covid immunisation programme is the largest in the world, and we have administered a record number of doses in such a short span of time. The har ghar dastak (knock on every door) campaign that PM launched on 3rd November is essentially meant to identify those beneficiaries who are yet to receive a shot. The states are actively performing the exercise and by month end a substantial chunk of those remaining to be vaccinated is likely to be covered,” said the official cited above.
