India is witnessing a downswing in the second wave of Covid-19 and hopefully it will be sustained even when restrictions are gently, systematically and cautiously relaxed, the Government said on Thursday as it pointed out a steady decline in new infections recorded in the country for the last 20 days, with 24 States witnessing a dip in active cases since the last week.
The country continues to note stabilisation of second wave in most parts, both by the number of cases and positivity rate, and despite a sustained and high overall testing coverage which is “reassuring”, NITI Aayog member (Health) V K Paul said at a Press conference here.
“We are achieving this in face of very significant restrictions in most states in addition to other tools and operations, including testing and Covid appropriate behaviour and vaccination efforts. Nonetheless, it is reassuring that we are on the downswing of the second wave and we do hope and believe that it will be sustained even when restrictions are gently, systematically and cautiously opened up,” he said.
Health ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal said while Covid-19 testing has increased manifold, a steady decline in weekly COVID-19 positivity rate has been seen since the last three weeks.
Paul said the vaccination pace should pick up in July. “We have a total of 51.6 crore doses, a large proportion of it is available and has to be used in an efficient manner. Bharat Biotech which started with 90 lakh capacity is ramping up and it is well within our expectation that it can reach ten times the production level to 10 crore per month in the next few months,” he said.
Paul said similarly the Serum Institute of India is also ramping up vaccine production from 6.5 crore per month to 11 crore or even more in months to come. Other vaccines in the pipeline are also moving close to increasing supplies such as Sputnik, Zydus and Genova vaccines so steady progress is being made.