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MUMBAI: India reported its lowest active number of new coronavirus cases in seven months on Saturday (January 30), a year after the virus was first confirmed in the country.
A year ago, a student from the southern state of Kerala tested positive for COVID-19 after returning to India from Wuhan in China, the global epicenter of the virus.
To stop the spread of the virus, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed a national blockade on the 1.3 billion inhabitants in late March.
The blockade, in which domestic and international travel were banned and factories, schools, offices and all stores that did not supply essential services were closed, crippled India’s economy, which is forecast to contract by 7.7% in the current fiscal year through March 31.
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The government began easing the blockade in June.
India was reporting fewer cases as of April 2020, but as of May cases began to rise and peaked in mid-September at about 100,000 cases daily.
The infection rate has slowed significantly since September and 13,083 new cases were reported on Saturday, one of the lowest numbers on record and below more than 20,000 each day at the beginning of the month, federal health data showed.
India has around 170,000 active COVID-19 patients, the lowest level since June 2020. It has reported 10.7 million infections and 154,147 deaths, one of the lowest death rates in the world, attributed in part to its relatively young population.
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The country has recorded the highest number of coronavirus cases in the world after the United States, and with the actual infection rate even higher, a study suggests that some foci in India have achieved herd immunity through natural infection. .
India started its immunization program on January 16, with healthcare workers aiming to reach 300 million people between July and August.
The most populous country in the world after China has vaccinated around 3.5 million health workers in the first two weeks of the campaign.
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