NEW DELHI: The daily new cases of COVID-19 and deaths due to the disease have shown a declining trend from August 13, the Health Ministry said Tuesday, but warned against any laxity, underlining that five days are a short span in the context of a pandemic.
Addressing a press briefing, Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said that in spite of a sustained level of 7-8 lakh coronavirus tests a day, the positivity rate has come down from 10.03 per cent to 7.72 per cent.
"The daily new cases from August 13 are down from over 64,000 to 55,079 now. There is a declining trend. But five days are a short span in the context of a pandemic and there is no room for laxity on containment, testing and surveillance," Bhushan said.
"Absolute deaths have also declined during the same period. These two parameters do give us some satisfaction but there is no reason for us to slacken our guard," he said.
He further said the number of recovered patients has reached close to 20 lakhs, which is 2.93 times of active COVID-19 cases.
"19,77,779 people have recovered from the disease so far. There are 6,73,166 active cases of coronavirus infection and they are under medical supervision," he said.
Bhushan said the case fatality rate has also come down below 2 per cent.
"The daily case fatality rate has reduced to 1.92 per cent and the weekly average fatality rate is 1.94 per cent. Both are below 2 per cent," he said.
"In its interaction with state and UT governments, the Health Ministry has repeatedly underlined the fact that our aim should be to bring down the case fatality rate to one per cent or below that," Bhushan said.