India’s Covid curve continues to offer better news with the number of active cases dropping to below 9 lakh on Thursday, depicting a steady trajectory of declining actual caseload for almost three weeks now even though some states pose concerns with high positivity rates.
With a larger number of recoveries as compared to new cases being reported daily, a sustained declining trend can be seen in active cases. While 70,496 new patients were added on Thursday, 78,365 were discharged. At 8.93 lakh active cases, the count is below 9 lakh for the first time after a month.
The weekly average of new cases has been less than the average number of daily recoveries for over three weeks. Also the weekly average of fresh cases itself has been falling. For instance, during October 2-8 the average new cases dropped to 5.23 lakh from over 6.14 lakh during September 18-24.
“This is the result of collaborative action by states and UTs under the Centre’s strategy of comprehensive testing, tracking, quick hospitalisation and adherence to the standard treatment protocol which has ensured a standardised quality of medical care across public and private hospitals & for home isolation cases,” the health ministry said.
While seven states and UTs have positivity rate below 5%, a total of 22 have positivity below the national average. However, states and UTs like Goa, Maharshtra, Chandigarh, Nagaland and Kerala continue to report high positivity rate. On Thursday, India recorded an average positivity of 6.53%, whereas Goa recorded the highest positivity rate at 30.20%. This was followed by Sikkim at 19.82%, Maharashtra at 17.58%, Chandigarh at 14.97%, Nagaland at 13.64% and Kerala at 13.08%.
Majority 78% of new cases were reported from 10 states and UTs, underlining the concentration of the disease burden in few states. In fact, Maharashtra continues to be the state reporting a high number of new cases.
