The Union Health Ministry on Tuesday said that India’s Covid-19 tests are the second-highest in the world while recoveries have crossed 79 lakh, which is highest across the globe.
It also expressed satisfaction that new cases have sustained declining trend in the past three days, reporting below 50,000 to touch to 38,000 cases in the past 24 hours taking the total caseload to 85,91,730, while the death count climbed to 1,27,059 with 448 new fatalities in the past 24 hours.
Responding to a query at a press briefing, Bhushan said that more than 11.96 crore tests have been conducted till now with more than 11 lakh tests conducted daily during last week. “Daily positivity rate during last week recorded at 4.2 per cent,” he said.
“For the third day in a row, daily new coronavirus infections in the country settled below the 50,000-mark,” the official said adding that the figures assume significance in the context of some countries reporting as high as one lakh cases per day since the last 3-4 days.
There has been a sustained decrease in the number of active cases in the country over the past few weeks, which has shrunk to 5,05,265 and presently comprise 5.88 per cent of the total caseload.
However, seventy-two per cent of new infections reported in a span of 24 hours are from 10 states and UTs with Delhi continuing to report the highest daily new cases at 5,983, which is less than its previous day tally of 7,745 new cases.
ICMR DG Dr Balram Bhargava attributed factors such as air pollution, cold weather, crowding due to festivals and marriages, no social distancing in markets and movement from Delhi-NCR for sharp surge in the Covid cases in the national capital which is reporting third wave.
Delhi has reported the maximum number of single-day recoveries with 7,014 newly recovered cases. A total of 5,983 people recovered in Kerala followed by 4,396 in West Bengal.
Seventy-two per cent of the new cases are from 10 States and UTs —Delhi, West Bengal, Kerala, Maharashtra, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
On question whether during the Bihar poll campaign Covid-norms were violated, he said that a Central Government team found that norms like wearing masks and hand hygiene “less than satisfactory” outside the urban centres.