NEW DELHI: Despite the growing Omicron scare and rising coronavirus cases globally, Covid infections continue to fall in India. The country logged less than 50,000 fresh cases in the week ending Sunday, the first time in 19 months that the weekly count had dropped below that mark.
India recorded nearly 49,000 fresh cases in the week (December 13-19), a drop of 12.3% from the previous week's count of 55,824 and the lowest point of the pandemic in the country since May 2020, as per TOI's Covid database. The last time weekly cases had dropped below 50,000 was on May 25-31, 2020, when the country had recorded 48,858.
Randeep Guleria, director of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS)-Delhi, on Sunday said the current vaccines against Covid-19 could be tweaked to offer protection against newer variants of the contagion.
Deaths too decreased to below 2,000 during the week for the first time since October 11-17. India reported 1,922 fatalities during December 13-19, of which 680 deaths took place in recent days. The rest 1,242 were old fatalities added to the toll now, mainly by Kerala. This was in keeping with the trend of the past many weeks when old deaths have been significantly higher than recent casualties from Covid.
Kerala reported a 20% decline in fresh infections. The state posted 22,984 cases in the week as compared with 28,684 in the previous week. Significantly, for the first time in many weeks, Kerala accounted for less than 50% of the country's Covid cases. Its share was down to 47%.
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Most states of the country continued to report a fall in fresh Covid cases. The notable exceptions were Maharashtra and Delhi, both registering a spike in infections for the second week running.
NEW DELHI: India's Omicron tally crossed the 150-mark on Sunday and stood at 155 with 10 fresh cases reported from two states -- six from Maharashtra and four from Gujarat. Maharashtra tops the chart in the state-wise tally with 54 cases, followed by Delhi, which has 22 cases. Among the new cases in
Maharashtra logged 5,713 fresh cases, the second highest in the country after Kerala, and a 12% increase over the previous seven days' count of 5,105. Last week, the state had seen a more modest 3.5% increase in Covid cases.
Delhi recorded an even higher spurt in cases although overall numbers remained comparatively low. The capital reported 479 fresh cases, a 33% spike over the previous week (360). Last week, Delhi had seen numbers rise by 14%.
A few other states too reported a rise in infections. UP posted 148 new cases, a 70% rise from the previous week's tally of 87. MP continued to report a slow increase in cases with a 13% rise this week. MP reported 132 new cases. Jharkhand numbers were up too, as was the tally in Uttarakhand, which saw a 30% increase to 116 cases this week.
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