Declining trend in fresh Covid-19 cases

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  Declining trend in fresh Covid-19 cases

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Read more on - Polity | Economy | Schemes | S&T | Environment

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• May hopes: After nearly two months, the recoveries in a single day from Covid outnumbered the daily new cases with more than 3,56,082 recoveries on 11-May 2021, against 3,29,942 new infections. While Covid-19 cases were showing an increasing trend in 16 states in the country, another 18 have been showing early signs of decline or plateauing. That is a good indicator.
• Data: Between April 27 and May 11, the number of daily new Covid cases has nearly doubled in states such as Himachal Pradesh, Puducherry, Manipur, Meghalaya, Tripura, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, J&K, and Goa.

1. Southern states, including Kerala, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu, have been on a constant incline for over two weeks along with West Bengal, Odisha, and Punjab.
2. There was a decline in cases in states such as Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Telangana, and Gujarat. In UP’s Lucknow, Kanpur, and Varanasi, cases are down by almost half in the last two weeks.
3. A declining trend was noticeable in Pune, Nagpur, Nasik, and Palghar in Maharashtra. Southern districts, including Ernakulam and Mallapuram, in Kerala, Kolkata in West Bengal, Bengaluru Urban and Mysuru in Karnataka are of concern with cases seeing a sharp rise.
4. There are 533 districts in the country with a positivity rate of more than 10 per cent and maximum of these are in Madhya Pradesh, UP, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Bihar. Positivity is over 15 per cent in 26 states, with Goa reporting the highest test positivity rate in the country of over 49 per cent followed by Puducherry at 43 per cent. Only four states have less than 5 per cent positivity. National positivity rate is 21 per cent.

• New guidelines: The health ministry had revised its testing guidelines to rationalise the use of RT-PCR tests, demand for which have outpaced supply. The steps included greater use of rapid antigen tests, no testing for recovered individuals or asymptomatic people who are travelling.
• Waves, compared: The comparison of the first and second wave data has shown that there was not much age difference in the patients getting infected and those above 40 were more vulnerable, ICMR has said. The mortality rate for hospitalised patients has also been in the range of 9.6 to 9.7 per cent in both waves. Authorities said that younger people were getting more involved because they have suddenly gone out. Variants were also prevalent which may be affecting the younger people as well.
• O2 supply: There was a sevenfold increase in the supply of liquid medical oxygen in the country from 1,320 mt in March 2021 to 8,943 mt on May 9, the ministry of home affairs (MHA) said. The number of cryogenic tanks storing oxygen at hospitals increased to 900 in May from 600 a year ago and almost a threefold increase in the number of oxygen cylinders in the same period. Jumbo Hospitals with a capacity of around 12,400 beds is also being set up with gaseous oxygen from refineries and power and steel plants.
• Summary: It would be at least till July end that the worst phase of second wave would be over fully. India has to prepare for what lies ahead, in terms of vaccinating the most people at the earliest, and ramping up infrastructure for a potential third wave.

Read more on - Polity | Economy | Schemes | S&T | Environment

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