The Union Health Ministry on Tuesday said that the continuous decline in the number of active cases of COVID-19 and further improvement in cases of recovery is being noted in the country from the last 15 days, even as the declining number of daily cases in Delhi has resulted in increase in the number of vacant beds and intensive care units in the city’s hospitals, giving much needed respite to its citizens. Briefing media in New Delhi, Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry Lav Aggarwal informed that the number of active cases which were at the level of 17.13 percent on May 3, has now come down to 13.3 percent while the recovery rate has further improved to 85.6 percent from 81.7 percent.
He also informed that the country has reported the highest ever recovery of over four lakh 22 thousand cases in the last 24 hours. He said, there are now only eight states in the country which are reporting more than 10 thousand daily cases and there are 26 states where the number of recovered cases are more than the active daily cases. He said, 69 per cent of the active cases of COVID are limited in eight states.
Meanwhile in Delhi, on Tuesday, of the total available beds, 12,907 were vacant while 14,805 were occupied.
The COVID-19 situation in Delhi has been showing signs of improvements over the past few days with the number of cases and positivity rate going down steadily.
The national capital on Tuesday reported 4,482 Covid-19 cases – the lowest single-day rise since April 5 – and 265 fatalities, while the positivity rate dipped to 6.89 per cent, according to the latest health bulletin released by the city government.
On a national level, at present 27 percent decline in active cases has been noted from the level of May 7 when the country noted the highest peak with more than four lakh 14 thousand cases. He said, the country is now witnessing a continuous decline in the number of active cases of COVID-19 and during the last 24 hours, 2,63,533 new cases were registered. Mr Agarwal said, there are eight states which have over one lakh active cases while ten states have 50 thousand to one lakh active cases and 18 states have with less than 50 thousand active cases.
Sharing data about the infection in comparison to other countries, Mr Aggarwal mentioned that in the last one year and four months, despite the high number of cases reported so far, the government had been able to contain the spread of infection to under two per cent of the population. He said, whereas it is around 10.1 per cent in the USA, 7.3 per cent in Brazil, nine per cent in France and 7.4 per cent in Italy.
NITI Aayog Member, Dr V. K. Paul informed that the pandemic curve in many states is stabilising which is due to the comprehensive efforts at containment and testing level undertaken by them.
Meanwhile, Mumbai’s daily coronavirus case figure has dropped below the 1,000-mark after over 10 weeks. The Maharashtra capital, which had been ravaged by the dangerous second wave of Covid infections in April, on Tuesday logged just 953 cases, lowest since March 2. However, testing has sharply declined compared to the April levels.
The city on Tuesday reported 44 deaths in a day. The positivity rate in Mumbai was 5.31 per cent – way lower than the April figures. Its recovery rate has also improved to 93 per cent; the doubling rate rests at 255 days.
Mumbai had reported 849 cases on March 2. The next few weeks, however, were extremely challenging as it was hit by an unprecedented surge, which took the city’s health infrastructure to the verge of collapse.