(TibetanReview.net, May16’21) – The devastating second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in India appears to have turned a corner although the total number has now crossed the 24 million mark. The 7-day average of daily cases has fallen for 7 days in a row, the positivity rate over the past week has dipped below 20% and active cases have decreased by more than 1.5 lakh during this period, noted the timeofindia.com May 16.
Also, the government of India said May 15 that the rate of the current decline of Covid-19 cases was faster than during the first wave, while the overall situation was stabilizing, said another timeofindia.com report May 16. It cited the health ministry as saying active cases in India had been declining while the number of recovered patients had increased.
While all this is the overall picture, 316 districts still have an increasing trend in case positivity.
“Overall Covid situation is stabilising to an extent. In some states it is a clear pattern, in some there is still concern and some states are even showing increase in cases. We have a mixed picture in front of us but overall the situation is stabilising. We hope and we will work towards ensuring further stabilisation,” NITI Aayog member-health Dr V K Paul has said.
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The latest data from India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare show that there were 311,170 new Covid-19 cases and 4,077 new deaths in the country in the past 24 hours recorded on May 16 at 8 AM, taking their cumulative totals to 24,684,077 cases and 270,284 deaths respectively.
A total of nearly 20.80 million (20,795,335 or 84.25%) had recovered while the number of active cases was a down at nearly 3.62 million (3,618,458, or 14.66% of the total). The case fatality rate was 1.09%.
Fifteen states – Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Chattisgarh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Bihar, Telangana, Punjab, Jharkhand, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Goa – with heavy caseloads have reported varying levels of decline in active cases.
The active caseload was at its lowest at 1,35,926 on Feb 12 comprising 1.25% of the total infections.
Twenty-four states/Union Territories have reported more than 1,000 new cases in the last 24 hours, namely Karnataka (41,664), Maharashtra (34,848), Tamil Nadu (33,658), Kerala (32,680), Andhra Pradesh (22,517), West Bengal (19,511), Rajasthan (13,575), Uttar Pradesh (12,513), Odisha (11,805), Haryana (9,676), Gujarat (9,061), Chattisgarh (7,664), Madhya Pradesh (7,571), Bihar (7,336), Punjab (6,771), Delhi (6,430), Uttarakhand (5,654), Assam (5,347), Telangana (4,298), Himachal Pradesh (4,145), Jammu and Kashmir (3,677), Jharkhand (3,157), Goa (1,957), and Puducherry (1,598).
Nine other states/Union Territories have reported more than 100 new cases in the last 24 hours, namely Tripura (761), Manipur (730), Chandigarh (660), Meghalaya (560), Nagaland (304), Arunachal Pradesh (249), Sikkim (215), Mizoram (181), Ladakh (177), and Dadra And Nagar Haveli And Daman And Diu (112).
Twenty-nine states/Union Territories have reported 5 or more Covid-19 deaths each in the last 24 hours, namely Maharashtra (960), Karnataka (349), Delhi (337), Tamil Nadu (303), Uttar Pradesh (281), Punjab (216), Uttarakhand (197), Rajasthan (149), Haryana (144), West Bengal (144), Chattisgarh (129), Andhra Pradesh (98), Kerala (96), Gujarat (95), Bihar (73), Madhya Pradesh (72), Jharkhand (65), Assam (63), Jammu and Kashmir (63), Goa (58), Himachal Pradesh (56), Telangana (32), Odisha (21), Meghalaya (21), Puducherry (20), Manipur (10), Chandigarh (8), Nagaland (6), and Sikkim (5). The rest of the states/Union Territories have reported 2 or less deaths.
India is currently the country with the world’s second highest number of Covid-19 cases after the USA, and the third highest number of deaths after the USA and Brazil in cumulative numbers.
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The cumulative total of Covid-19 cases among Tibetans in India and Nepal has remained unchanged at 3,377, according to the tally of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) on its Tibet.net website May 16. Of the total number of cases, 2,119 had recovered, 1,175 were active, and 83 had died.
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Across the world the number of Covid-19 cases totaled more than 162 million (162,564,670) and the deaths over 3.37 million (3,370,617), according to the tally of Johns Hopkins University as of May 16, 2021 at 2:50 PM.
