NEW DELHI: The Union government on Saturday said that the Covid-19 second wave in India has started showing signs of stabilization and the overall test positivity rate is 19.8%, down from 21.9% last week.
There are 11 states with over one lakh active cases and 17 have less than 50,000, as per the figures shared by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
“Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh have reported a decline in active cases. The cause of concern is Tamil Nadu where a rise in the number of active cases has been reported in the last one week,” said Lav Agarwal, joint secretary in the ministry.
V K Paul, member (health), Niti Aayog and chairman of the national Covid-19 task force, said that the overall situation in the country is showing signs of improvement and the government will work towards ensuring further stabilisation.
“It is evident that we can see a certain amount of stabilisation of the second wave of the pandemic. Some states have shown a clear pattern, in some states there are concerns and, in some others, there is a trend towards an increase,” said Paul.
“It is a mixed picture. Overall, the situation is stabilising we hope and we will work towards ensuring further stabilisation and rapid decline of this pandemic,” Paul said at the ministry briefing.
The details shared showed that 10 states account for 85% of the total coronavirus cases in the country and 24 states have a Covid-19 positivity rate of more than 15%. Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Daman and Diu, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh have reported a major drop in case positivity rates.
On Saturday, India registered a total of 3,26,098 Covid- 19 cases that took the overall tally to 2,43,72,907 but active cases came down by 31,091, as compared to Friday.
This is the fifth day in a row that active infections have come down, after reaching the four-million mark. The active cases now stand at 36,73,802 and comprise 15.07% of the total infections, while the national Covid-19 recovery rate has improved to 83.83%.
On a positive note, the number of districts with over 10% test positivity rate, which was 533 a week back, has come down to 516. Madhya Pradesh with 42 such districts, has the highest number of districts with runaway infections, followed by Tamil Nadu (37).