Covid-19 cases declining, case positivity down by 50%: Union Health Ministry

The Union Health Ministry said on Thursday that the country has been seeing a decrease in daily Covid-19 cases and test case positivity rate. After hitting a peak of 22.49 lakh cases on January 22, the daily active cases have come down to 15.33 lakhs. Case positivity had come down from 20.75% on January 24 to 10.99% on February 2. There has been a decline in the case for the last 14 days with the country reporting 1.72 lakh new Covid cases on Thursday.

The number of new cases during the second wave peaked at 4.14 lakh cases in May 2020 while the highest daily cases during the current Omicron wave has been 3.47 lakh cases, which was recorded on January 21, the health ministry said.

V K Paul, member, health Niti Aayog, said there was an overall contraction in the spread of infection and a declining trend of the pandemic. There was clear evidence that vaccination was protecting with a low prevalence of the disease and protection against mortality. Regarding trimming of vaccine budget from `35,000 crore in 2021-2022 to Rs 5,000 crore in the 2022-23 Budget, Paul said the finance secretary had clarified that this was only a provision and if needed more resources would be made available.

The spread of the infection has reduced with the number of districts with more than 10% case positivity coming down from 406 to 297, Lav Agarwal, joint secretary, the health ministry said. The number of districts with less than 5% positivity had climbed up from 183 on January 26 to 268 on February 2.

Agarwal expressed concern over the situation in Kerala and Manipur where both test positivity and the number of cases were still rising. Kerala had reported a case positivity of 47% with 3.54 lakh cases, while Manipur had 14,079 cases with case positivity at 34%. Kerala was also reporting more deaths and was reconciling death figures frequently, Agarwal said. On Thursday, the state added 335 deaths, 638 deaths on Wednesday and 1,000 deaths on Tuesday. Between October 2021 and February 2022, the state reported 24,730 deaths, which is a point of concern, he said.

India’s cumulative Covid-19 vaccination coverage stands at 168.38 crore, with 94.79 crore having received the first dose, while 72.25 crore with second dose and 1.32 crore precautionary doses administered till Thursday evening. Children in the 15-17 age group received 5.16 crore doses of Covaxin with 4.78 crore first doses and 21.63 lakh second doses. Nearly 96% of the country’s eligible population has received their first dose, while 76% has got two doses. Around 65% of the 15-18-year-old group has been vaccinated.