The Centre said on Thursday that most states and Union territories (UTs) across the country are reporting a decline in their Covid-19 tally, with the number of those having more than 50,000 active caseload currently standing at eight. Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Kerala are some of the states where the active tally is above 50,000, joint secretary of Union health ministry Lav Agarwal said during a weekly Covid-19 press briefing.
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He added that there is an overall dip in Covid-19 cases across India, with the active case count of the country at 15,33,921 as of February 3. Agarwal said India reported a peak of 3,47,254 of active infections on January 21 this year, which is less than the previous peak recorded on May 7 last year - during the second wave of the pandemic, of 4,14,188.
“There has been a drop in the number of states with more than 50,000 active Covid-19 cases. Meanwhile, there are 12 states where the active count is between 10,000 and 50,000, while 16 states have less than 10,000 infections currently,” Agarwal said.
He said that among the states with over 50,000 active caseload, Kerala is the only one that has witnessed a surge in infection rate. “Looking at Kerala's active tally on a week-on-week basis, it can be seen that there has been a surge of 1.26 times,” the joint secretary added.
{{/usCountry}}He said that among the states with over 50,000 active caseload, Kerala is the only one that has witnessed a surge in infection rate. “Looking at Kerala's active tally on a week-on-week basis, it can be seen that there has been a surge of 1.26 times,” the joint secretary added.
{{/usCountry}}The remaining seven states in the list, including Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, and Andhra Pradesh, have shown a consistent decline in their Covid-19 infection rate. Tamil Nadu's active tally has seen a drop by 0.83 times from 213,692 a week before to 177,999 currently. Karnataka and Maharashtra, meanwhile, saw a decline by 0.50 and 0.59 times, respectively. The southern state's active tally decreased from 3,57,939 to 1,77,276 in a week, while Maharashtra's went down from 3,02,572 to 1,77,131 during the same time.
Regarding the case positivity and active case count scenario across the country, Agarwal said that besides Kerala, Mizoram is the other state where the infection rate is seeing an uptick on a week-on-week basis.
“We are constantly in touch with the states, and have urged them to take containment measures along with hospital management so that we combat the Covid-19 together,” he said.
India on Thursday reported a slight spike in single-day Covid-19 cases after 1,72,433 people tested positive for the virus, according to data shared by the Union health ministry. As many as 1,008 fresh fatalities were logged, taking the overall toll to 4,98,983. The sharp rise in the daily toll was contributed by Kerala that added as many as 500 backlog numbers. The active caseload of India currently stands at 15,33,921, accounting for 3.67% of the overall tally of 41,803,318, the health ministry's data showed.