Lodging 3,11,170 new cases of the novel coronavirus, along with 4,077 deaths, India on Sunday saw a total of 3,62,437 discharges in the last 24 hours, taking the total recovery to 2,07,95,335, according to the data shared by the Union Health Ministry.
Total cases of Covid-19 in the country have now risen to 2,46,84,077, with 36,18,458 active cases, while the total fatalities in the country are now at 2,70,284.
The number of active cases has plateaued and decreased in the last week, the Centre informed, highlighting that the positivity rate has gone below 20 per cent. The positivity rate - the proportion of samples that return positive for Covid-19 - fell from 21.9% last week to 19.8% in the May 8-14 period. A decline in positivity rate indicates a slow spread of infection.
Government figures show that the number of active cases, which were reaching 40 lakh, has now been dropping to around 36-37 lakh. The health ministry officials called it a "big achievement" due to more recoveries and the case fatality rate remains stable. It is for the fourth time in the last five days, India's daily Covid-19 recoveries outnumbered new cases on Saturday. The national recovery rate stands at 83.83 per cent.
A major reason for the drop in active cases of infection is the strict curbs that many states are going through now and the vaccination of more people in the ongoing vaccination drive.
The Centre is now focusing on those states which have a high number of active cases. 11 states have over one lakh active cases and 17 have less than 50,000 cases. States like Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh having high caseload have reported a decrease in the number of active cases in the last one week, whereas the situation in Tamil Nadu remains an area of concern due to the rise in the number of active cases in the same period.
On May 3, the active cases were 17.13 per cent of the total caseload, which has dipped to 15.1 per cent and recovered cases rise to 83.8 per cent, while the national mortality rate currently stands at 1.09 per cent, according to Union health ministry data.
A total of 18,22,20,164 people have so far been vaccinated against COVID-19 in India.
Meanwhile, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Saturday said by the end of July, the number of vaccine doses administered in India will reach 51.6 crores. India has so far administered more than 18 crore jabs to eligible beneficiaries. Vardhan, during his discussion with the health ministers of Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, said vaccine production was being ramped up to cater to the increased demand.
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"Production of vaccines is being steadily ramped up to cater to increased demand while vaccines that are being produced now continue to be equitably apportioned and swiftly sent to States/Union Territories.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday had held a high-level meeting to review India's Covid situation, suggesting, "localised containment strategies are the need of the hour especially for states where TPR (test positivity rate) is high". India's testing capacity has increased significantly from around 50 lakh tests per week in early March to around 1.3 crore tests per week now, he was told.
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Meanwhile, Russia's Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine arrived in India and was administered on Friday in Hyderabad, as a pilot launch and production will scale up in the coming days. It will be India's third vaccine after Bharat Biotech's Covaxin and Serum Institute's Covishield.