There were 46,790 new cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) and 587 related deaths in the last 24 hours as India’s infection tally went up to 7,597,063, according to the Union health ministry on Tuesday. The number of Covid-19 cases and death have been relatively low for two days now — there were 55,722 infections and 579 fatalities on Monday.
For the fourth day in a row, the active cases dropped below the 800,000 mark at 748,538, according to the health ministry’s Covid-19 dashboard at 8am, India’s death toll has gone up to 115,197, it showed. There were 69,720 Covid-19 patients who recovered between Monday and Tuesday and the number of recovered is 6,733,328 across the country. The national recovery rate has gone up to 88.63%.
Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, which have been the most affected by the coronavirus pandemic, have seen a decline in the number of Covid-19 cases since the last one month. The health ministry said the trend of daily cases of the coronavirus disease in these five reveals the various stages of decline of active cases. “These mirror the steady decrease in ACTIVE CASES in the country, with the caseload being sustained below 8L for 3 days in a row,” the ministry tweeted on Tuesday morning with a graph of the cases from these five states.
On Monday, the ministry had said the national cumulative positivity rate has fallen under 8% and that the trend has been sustained without a break for four days. The cumulative positivity rate was 7.94%, which the ministry attributed to the “high level of comprehensive country-wide testing.” “As evidence has revealed, higher numbers of testing on a sustained basis have aided in bringing down the positivity rate. The decline in the cumulative positivity rate has demonstrated that the rate of spread of infection is being effectively contained,” the ministry added.
The average daily positivity rate or the percentage of samples that have tested positive from the total samples tested was 6.13% for the third week of October, the ministry said. “This is a result of successful TEST, TRACK, TRACE, TREAT and TECHNOLOGY strategy of the Central government effectively followed by States/UTs,” it said.
On Monday, 79% of the new recovered cases were concentrated in Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Delhi, Odisha, and Chhattisgarh. Maharashtra had contributed the maximum with more than 11,000 single day recovery followed by Kerala and Karnataka with more than 8,000 recoveries each.
Of the 55,722 new Covid-19 cases on Monday, 81% were from 10 states and Union territories. Maharashtra continues to be the state reporting a very high number of new cases with more than 9,000 cases followed by Kerala and Karnataka with more than 7,000 cases each.
The ministry said on Monday that of the 579 fatalities nearly 83% are concentrated in 10 states and Union territories. More than 25% of new fatalities reported are from Maharashtra with 150 deaths, it added.
India is the second worst-hit country after the United States as the number of coronavirus disease cases have risen to more than 40 million across the world.