The Worst Of COVID-19 Maybe Behind Us As India Sees A Decline In New Cases For Five Weeks

In the past 24 hours, India has recorded 55,342 new COVID-19 infections, taking the total number of cases so far to 7,175,880.

While one reason for the 55,342 new cases, which is the lowest in nearly two months could be low testing in on the weekends, data shows that the country has been recording a drop in new infections for over a month now.

AFP

The country has been recording less than 75,000 new infections daily for the fifth consecutive day and fatalities below 1,000 for 10 straight days.

India registered a record single-day increase of 97,894 COVID-19 cases on September 17.

Fall in COVID infections

According to data shared by the Health Ministry, the average number of daily cases from Sept. 9-15 was 92,830. The average has steadily declined since then, falling to under 73,000 per day over the last week.

Reuters

"India is showing a trend of declining average daily cases over the past 5 weeks. After a month, on 9th Oct, active cases fell below the 9L mark and have steadily followed a downward slope since," the Health Ministry said in a tweet.

Less than 800 deaths in last 24 hours

While the total cases mounted to 71,75,880, the death toll climbed to 1,09,856 as the virus claimed 706 lives in a span of 24 hours.

There are 8,38,729 active cases of coronavirus in the country which comprises 11.69 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated.

The case fatality rate due to COVID-19 was recorded at 1.53 per cent.

Reuters

India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23 and 40 lakh on September 5. It went past 50 lakh on September 16, 60 lakh on September 28 and crossed 70 lakh on October 11.

8,89,45,107 samples tested

According to ICMR, a cumulative total of 8,89,45,107 samples has been tested up to October 12 with 10,73,014 samples being tested on Monday.

The 706 new fatalities include 165 from Maharashtra, 70 from Karnataka, 62 from Tamil Nadu, 60 from West Bengal, 44 from Uttar Pradesh, 40 from Delhi, 33 from Chhattisgarh and 32 from Andhra Pradesh.

REUTERS

Total 1,09,856 deaths reported so far in the country includes 40,514 from Maharashtra followed by 10,314 from Tamil Nadu, 10,036 from Karnataka, 6,438 from Uttar Pradesh, 6,256 from Andhra Pradesh, 5,809 from Delhi, 5,682 from West Bengal, 3,860 from Punjab and 3,574 from Gujarat.

The Health Ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities.

"Our figures are being reconciled with the Indian Council of Medical Research," the ministry said.