October 20, 2020 12:23:12 pm
Kolkata Police carry out an awareness campaign in the new market area in front of Durga Puja. (Express photo: Partha Paul)
For the first time since the end of July, India recorded fewer than 50,000 new infections of the novel coronavirus on Monday. The 47,000 cases detected Monday were the lowest in three months.
The steep drops in daily numbers on Mondays are nothing unusual. They have become a familiar pattern now, due to Sunday’s low testing. But even then, the drop in detection of new cases this week is much larger than expected. This Sunday, tests of 8.59 lakh were conducted, against the normal range of tests of 10 to 11 lakh each day. When the norm was eight to nine lakhs of tests per day, India detected more than 60,000 cases.
Alternatively, when India was reporting 45,000 to 50,000 cases per day, the number of tests was in the range of four to five lakhs of tests per day.
The continuing decline in the number of new cases has meant that, after two and a half months, India has stopped reporting the largest number of cases in the world. Over the past three days, the United States, which is in the midst of a resurgence, has reported more new infections than India. There is a resurgence of cases in various countries in Europe too.
A government-appointed committee of scientists said Sunday that the epidemic in India could have already reached a peak, and that the decline had begun. The committee had said that if all went well from here on, the epidemic could be tightly controlled by February next year.
Professor Manindra Agrawal from IIT Kanpur, who was part of the committee, said The Indian Express was It is not necessary India also suffers from a second wave of infections, as is currently happening in the United States and Europe. But it was important that people follow safety instructions, wear masks, and practice physical distancing. This was even more important because the decline in numbers could lead to people becoming complacent, he said. Professor Agrawal said that if India survived the festival season without an excessive increase in numbers, there was hope for an early control of the epidemic.
India’s daily Covid-19 count in October.
On Monday, Maharashtra reported fewer than 6,000 cases, which was the lowest since July 8. It was still the largest contributor in the country, meaning other states like Karnataka and Kerala, which have been reporting large numbers of cases these days, also discovered much fewer infections on Monday.
By September, daily case detection in Maharashtra had exceeded 20,000. Its peak so far has been over 24,000. From there, the fall has been strong and significant. Because Maharashtra still accounts for more than 20 percent of all cases in India so far, and contributes about a sixth of new cases in the country these days, any decline in the state also has a huge impact on national figures.📣 Click to follow Express Explained on Telegram
Top 10 states with peak Covid-19 cases.
Daily recoveries have now outnumbered new cases for 17 consecutive days, with active cases down by more than two and a half lakhs in the past month. The total number of people who have so far been infected with the virus in India is approaching 76 lakh now, of which more than 67.33 lakh, or 87 percent, have recovered. The death count has exceeded 1.15 lakh.
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