Despite a spike of almost 50,000 new Covid-19 cases daily in the past few days and two States — Kerala and Telangana — declaring community transmission of the virus in their region, the Union Health Ministry on Thursday insisted that there is only localised transmission.

To justify its point, it said that in 80 per cent of the new cases, source of infection and close contacts can be traced within 72 hours while out of 740 districts, just 50 are reporting 80 per cent of the total cases.

“India has a cluster of cases and pockets of localised transmission. With a 138-crore  population, only 50 out of 740 districts contribute to 80 per cent cases.

In 80 per cent of new cases, source of infection and close contacts can be traced within 72 hours. How’s it community transmission,” asked Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan.

He was talking to reporters at a press briefing here on the status of the Covid-19 in the country.

The official said that due to enhanced testing infrastructure, on an average 4,68,263 Covid-19 tests have been conducted daily from July 26 to 30. The recovery rate among Covid-19 patients too has increased from 7.85 per cent in April to 64.44 per cent on Thursday, the officer said.

“Recoveries are now 1.9 times the number of active coronavirus cases.” Bhushan further said that 21 States and Union Territories have case positivity rate less than 10 per cent, while in four it is less than five per cent.

The Covid-19 positivity rate in Rajasthan is 3.5 per cent, Punjab 3.9 per cent, Madhya Pradesh 4 per cent, and Jammu and Kashmir 4.7 per cent, he said.

The OSD also stressed that effective clinical management has led to a decline in COVID-19 case fatality rate from 3.33 per cent on June 18 to 2.21 per cent on July 30.

Bhushan further said that 16 states of the country have a recovery rate that is more than the national average.

Of these, Delhi has recovery rate of 88 per cent, Ladakh 80 per cent, Haryana 78 per cent, Assam 76 per cent, Telangana 74 per cent, Tamil Nadu & Gujarat 73 per cent, Rajasthan 70 per cent, MP 69 per cent and Goa 68 per cent.

“More than 1 million people have recovered from Covid-19 in the country,” said the official as he attributed the achievement to the healthcare workers. “This landmark recovery has been achieved because of the selfless work and dedication of our doctors, nurses and frontline workers,” he said.