Friday, 17 May, 2024
By: Yash Gupte
India reported 89 new cases taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 4,46,79,373. Image Source: IANS
Kerala has the highest number of active cases of COVID-19 in the country at 1,283, followed by Maharashtra with 137 active cases and Karnataka (103).
For the first time since the pandemic hit the country in March 2020, India reported less than 100 COVID-19 cases on Monday. According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, India reported 89 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday. Also, no COVID deaths were reported in the country for four days at a stretch. This comes at a time when COVID-19 cases are dropping continuously to new lows every day. The fall in the number of COVID-19 cases is surprising as many experts had recently warned about a rapid surge in the caseload in India amid the surging cases of COVID-19 in China. The numbers shows that the new COVID variant and the fresh wave in China has not affected India. On March 27, 2020, India recorded more than 100 instances in one day, and the daily total hadn't dropped below double digits since then.
The whole world came to a standstill during the early months of 2020 due to the outbreak of the coronavirus or the COVID-19 virus. Majority of the countries across the world were devastated by the sudden and extremely rapid spread of the coronavirus. Countries including India witnessed nationwide lockdowns as suggested by the World Health Organization (WHO) in order to contain the spread of the virus. The WHO designated COVID-19 as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on January 30, 2020. On January 30, 2020, Kerala, reported the country's first SARS-CoV-2 positive case.
Among the states and Union territories, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh and Assam, Dadra and Nagar Haveli & Daman and Diu, Jharkhand, Lakshadweep, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura currently don’t have any active cases of COVID-19. Kerala has the highest number of active cases of COVID-19 in the country at 1,283, followed by Maharashtra with 137 active cases and Karnataka (103).
India reported 89 new cases taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 4,46,79,373. while the active cases dipped to 1,998 according to the data released by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The active cases comprise 0.01 percent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has increased to 98.81 percent. The country has recorded 4.41 crore total recoveries till date. The current recovery rate stands at 98.81 percent. Coming over to the vaccination in the country, 220.18 crore doses of vaccines have been administered so far. India has witnessed a high testing rate since the beginning of the pandemic. The country has tested 89.74 crore samples so far. Around 5,30,728 lakh people have succumbed to the virus till date.
Source: Media Reports
India has not reported more than 250 cases in a single day in the month of January. The country reported maximum (228) cases on December 5, 2023. The data shows that the COVID-19 situation in India is still under control and the reason behind this can be attributed to the mass vaccination drive launched by the government.
Out of the total 8,435 covid-19 hospital beds in Delhi, 16 are currently occupied and 8,419 are vacant. Only 15 COVID-19 oxygen beds are currently occupied in Delhi out of the total 7,729 beds. Mumbai has around 24,600 beds reserved for COVID-19 patients. As of January 31, 2022 there were 12,060 oxygen beds in Mumbai which dropped to 4,699 beds on May 31. Intensive care unit (ICU) beds decreased from 3,098 to 1,520 during the same time period, and the number of ventilators too decreased from 1,526 to 845. The reason behind this can be attributed to the decline in daily cases. According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, 1,63,342 samples were tested in last 24 hours and out of those only 89 tested positive. This shows a decline in positivity rate.
The pandemic claimed a huge number of lives during its peak in India. The pandemic resulted in disruption in global supply chains and this caused a huge economic setback for many countries across the world. Countries witnessed an immense slowdown in their economy. Also, the healthcare system in India was overburdened due to lack of availability of beds due to a rapid increase in cases during the waves. Shortage of oxygen was also reported among different states in India. The central government and state government had been doing their best to contain the spread of the virus but it could bring only little help as many people lost their dear ones due to the pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic had very adverse effects on people as many of them slipped into poverty, many lost their jobs and many lost their dear ones too. According to a World Bank analysis, approximately 80 percent of those who fell into poverty in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic were from India. Indians made up 5.6 crore of the 7 crore persons who became poor that year as a result of the pandemic's economic losses.
Though the COVID-19 situation in India is not grave as compared to the other countries around the world, the government and the people in the country must be vigilant. The memories of first and second wave in the country continues to haunt the citizens. This time, it is important to be prepared before a new wave hits us.
