The daily count of coronavirus cases in India has dropped to nearly 30,000 in the past two days.
New Delhi:
The effects of recent elections and festivals on the coronavirus pandemic in India will unfold over the next week to 15 days, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said during a media interaction on COVID-19 amid from a steady decline in the country’s overall daily case count.
“We believe that the effects of the recent elections (in Bihar and elsewhere), Durga Puja, Diwali and other festivals have not yet been fully realized. We have to continue to watch new cases very carefully,” he said, warning people. don’t let your guard down. down despite “very low per million cases” in India.
In the past two days, India’s daily COVID-19 case count dropped to an average of 30,000, government data released today showed after a 4-week average of 48,000 daily cases.
“We’re not reading too much about this (drop),” Bhushan said, adding that weekly trends better reflect the progress of the pandemic.
The drop in national numbers goes against weeks of warnings to keep Covid wary in view of winter, festival season and elections: Assembly polls in Bihar and general elections in 11 states in the first week of November.
However, a steady increase in cases has been observed in West Bengal since Durga Puja, in Kerala since Onam and in Delhi during the last fortnight before Diwali.
Bihar is also seeing an increase in cases as Covid’s safe behavior of wearing masks and social distancing was almost ignored during the recently concluded three-phase elections.
The aggressive campaign in state elections had seen people, mostly without masks and hardly ever within a safe distance from each other, flock to political demonstrations that sparked concern over COVID-19 cases in Bihar.
More than 24,000 COVID-19 cases have been recorded in the past month as the case count increased from 2,03,060 on October 17 to 2,27,433 on November 16. The daily count has also been increasing.
The cases are likely to spike even further after this Friday in view of Chhat puja, when thousands of people show up at ponds, rivers, waterfront and ponds to offer prayers to the Sun God.
“We will increase testing,” Bhushan said, explaining that “reaching a plateau” simply shows that the Covid cases were now off the grid.
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