Batting Covid-19: Situation stabilising with reduction in daily cases, says health ministry

The ministry added that daily Covid-19 positive cases in the country remained below the three-lakh-level for the third consecutive day on Saturday. However, the number of daily deaths continued to stay above the 4,000-mark.

The Union health ministry on Saturday said the Covid-19 positivity rate was decreasing and stood at 13.85% during the May 15-21 period, the lowest in the past one month. The positivity rate on Saturday was recorded at 12.45% despite the number of daily testing rose to 20.66 lakh.

The ministry added that daily Covid-19 positive cases in the country remained below the three-lakh-level for the third consecutive day on Saturday. However, the number of daily deaths continued to stay above the 4,000-mark.

Lav Agarwal, joint secretary in the ministry of health and family welfare, said in a media briefing that daily cases dropped from 4,14,188 on May 13 to 2,57,299 cases on May 22 with a trend of decrease in cases seen over the last 15 days. The country saw 4,194 deaths on May 22 with six states – Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Delhi — accounting for the majority of the daily deaths.

The total number of deaths is nudging the 3,00,000-mark with 2,95,525 deaths reported till May 22 with a fatality rate of 1.12%.

V K Paul, member, health, Niti Aayog, said the pandemic was subsiding with active cases coming down and overall burden reducing as there was restrictions on social and economic activities as well as containment measures in place and these would have to continue to break the chain of transmission. Rural areas have been impacted in the second wave, Paul said.

The spread is now limited to ten sates which accounted for 78% of the daily cases. There are now eight states with more than one lakh cases. Karnataka was leading with 5.14 lakh cases, followed by Maharashtra with 3.69 lakh and Kerala with 3.06 lakh cases. However, all these states have shown a declining trend in cases. Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal have reported active cases of more than 1 lakh each and were witnessing a continuous rise in the number.

On vaccine wastage, the ministry said Covishield wastage has reduced from 8% on March 1 to 1% now, while Covaxin wastage decreased from 17% to 4% in the same period.