India with 15.5K New Cases Touches 1.11Cr

NEW DELHI:
Fresh Covid-19 cases are showing a worrying upward trend over the last two weeks. Single-day rise of 15,510 new Covid cases reported in the last 24 hours pushed India’s tally to 1,11,12,241 on Monday, while 106 fatalities mounted the death toll to 1,57,157, the Union Health Ministry said.

The positivity rate has been rising gradually, pushing it to 1.52 per cent. As per the Ministry’s data, there are 1,68,627 active cases at present after 11,288 patients were discharged in a day.

The experts have expressed a number of possibilities which could be owed to the stride ranging from lax attitude of people towards following Covid protocols to likeability of “mutations and new strains” causing the surge, as has been studied by the laboratories involved in Covid detection across the country.

In mid February, officials had said that the average daily new infections oscillated between 9,000 to 12,000 while the deaths were between 78 to 120.

On February 9, India had reported 9,110 new cases, the lowest this year so far. Last year, the lowest 9,633 cases were recorded on June 3.

Till now, 1,07,86,457 persons have been discharged so far. The recovery rate has reduced to 97.07 per cent.

Last week, around 90 per cent of the weekly average cases came from six states — Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Karnataka and Gujarat. Central teams have been rushed to these states as well.

The Ministry also informed that 6,27,668 samples were tested on Sunday. The cumulative tests done by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) so far stands at 21,68,58,774.

So far, 1,43,01,266 doses of corona vaccine have been administered in the country since the drive began on January 16 after approval for ‘Covishield’ and ‘Covaxin’.

The third phase of vaccination against Covid pandemic began on Monday covering 27 crore people above 60 and those above 45 years of age with comorbidities at 10,000 government and over 20,000 private vaccination centres. While people will be vaccinated free of cost at government hospitals, those taking the shots at private hospitals will have to pay.