Nationwide, the pandemic has slowed since September, but weekly increases in some states had remained massive in absolute terms. Yet this week, Kerala, Maharashtra and West Bengal, the source of most of the new infections, together totaled nearly 74,000 cases in seven days.
India has added 189,186 new patients in this period, the fewest in a week since mid-July, data from the Union’s health ministry showed on Thursday. This has brought the total case load to 9,956,557.
Active cases practically declined everywhere except Uttarakhand. In Delhi, whose third wave has peaked, the drop was 34%, and in Haryana and Rajasthan, it was around 26%. Rajasthan had faced a further increase in infections in recent weeks and had been forced to re-enforce strict measures. Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, which had also imposed some overnight curfews, also reported a slowdown.
All weekly trends are based on seven-day moving averages to minimize the effect of volatile and lagging reports.
The continued decline in active cases indicates that more patients are recovering than those who test positive. In the worst months, the trend was the opposite and had put pressure on health systems.
More than 500 people died in Maharashtra this week, increasing the state’s death toll by 1%. This was a fifth of India’s total COVID-related death count this week. But Kerala continued to have the fastest jump in death numbers (8%). Haryana (5%) and Uttarakhand (5%) were next.
With this, the total death toll in India has reached 144,451 as of Thursday.
As at the state level, also at the district level, the worst numbers are low by previous standards. Among the 334 districts with more than 5,000 confirmed cases so far, Mandi and Kangra in Himachal Pradesh reported the worst increase in the past week, data from howindialives.com shows. But their jump was only 13% and 12%, respectively. Wayanad in Kerala was next with an 11% increase in its number of cases.
In terms of deaths, Shimla (14%) recorded the highest increase in Himachal Pradesh and Malappuram and Kozhikode (11% each) in Kerala.
In the past fortnight, the positivity rate has dropped in all major states, data from covid19india.org showed. But despite the slowdown, states should not be lax in testing for the virus, especially now that winter is approaching and the year-end fever is approaching. Consistently high testing in Delhi has helped control the outbreak, but the low testing rate in West Bengal amid a growing case load is cause for concern.
Globally, the United States continues to add the most new coronavirus cases – nearly 30% of all cases in the last week. Brazil and India contributed 6% and 3% respectively. India also reported only 3% of all deaths recorded globally in the past seven days. A steady slowdown has helped the country reduce its cumulative share from nearly 10.5% two months ago to less than 9% now.
The global case count has surpassed 74 million, including 1.6 million deaths, data from Johns Hopkins University showed.
After the UK, the vaccination process started in the US this week, and healthcare workers received the first dose of the government-approved “target =” _ blank “rel =” nofollow “> Pfizer vaccine Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading disease expert, said vaccines could help the country achieve herd immunity by the end of the second quarter of 2021.
In India, where the vaccines have yet to gain approval for public distribution, the government has loosened its implementation plan a bit. Priority will be given to frontline health workers and people over 50, and the government will also enlist the help of electoral rolls to facilitate vaccine distribution. The country aims to vaccinate up to 300 million people by July 2021.
But the arrival of a vaccine is not the sure way to avoid infection. Although the UK started vaccination trials first, COVID-related deaths have resurfaced. In the last week, the country recorded more deaths than India, accounting for 4% share globally. Pandemic fatigue shouldn’t let impatience take over, especially with the vacation weeks ahead at the end of the year.
.
