NEW DELHI: India’s Covid-19 chart continued to show improvement.
On Monday, the country logged just 25,072 cases, taking the total past 3.24 crore.
However, a closer look at the numbers suggests that this significant drop could rather be a “manufactured” one on account of declining tests in Kerala.
The country has now reported less than 40,000 cases 10 days in a row and the fall in cases on Monday meant a decline of about 19 per cent as compared to the previous day.
Kerala has been reporting the highest number of daily infections over nearly two months now, but over the last two weeks, there has been a decline of 14 per cent in seven-day average of daily cases.
On Monday, for instance, Kerala reported just 10,402 new cases — down from 20,242 daily infections registered on the previous day.
But health economist Rijo M John, who has been tracking the figures, points out that daily new tests in the state has come down by 35 per cent over the last two weeks.
Also, he says, that the test positivity rate during the same time period went up from 12 per cent to 16 per cent.
“This is not a genuine way to flatten the curve,” John stresses.
This is a fact also acknowledged by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. A senior official told this newspaper that test positivity rate (TPR) in all 14 districts in the state is above 10 per cent.
“There are about 40 districts in India showing test positivity rate of over 10 per cent, of which one-third are from Kerala. This is not a good sign,” the official said.
Other sources in the ministry pointed out that a central government team sent to Kerala to help the state manage the Covid-19 outbreak earlier this month had identified some shortcomings on the part of the state in managing the pandemic which included inefficient contact tracing, among others.
The six-member team led by the National Centre for Disease Control director S K Singh, for instance, had said that in the state over 90 per cent of the cases are under home isolation, but the contact tracing ratio is only 1:1.5, instead of the recommended 1:20 for every positive case.
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“When the contact tracing is inadequate, it is evident that not a sufficient number of people are being tested,” the official said. “Now a further drop in testing is not a good sign and may end up worsening the pandemic situation.”
Certificates for trial participants
NEW DELHI: The Centre on Monday said trial participants of Phase 2 and 3 bridging studies for Covishield and efficacy study for Covaxin — a total of 11,349 individuals — can download vaccine certificates from the CoWIN portal.
The ICMR in partnership with Serum Institute of India had conducted Phase 2/3 bridging studies of Covishield from August, 2020. Phase 3 efficacy trials for Covaxin were conducted by Bharat Biotech from November.
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