(TibetanReview.net, May17’21) – Although for the first time during the course of the second Covid wave, India has registered a fall in cases in the week ended Sunday (Apr 16) as the infection eased in many parts of the country, experts have said there is no certainty that infections had peaked, with alarm growing both at home and abroad over the new more contagious B.1.617 variant taking hold, reported the timesofindia.com May 17.
“There are still many parts of the country which have not yet experienced the peak, they are still going up,” World Health Organization Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan was quoted as saying in the Hindu newspaper May 17.
Ms Swaminathan has pointed to the worryingly high national positivity rate, at about 20% of tests conducted, as a sign that there could be worse to come.
“Testing is still inadequate in a large number of states. And when you see high test positivity rates, clearly we are not testing enough. And so the absolute numbers actually don’t mean anything when they are taken just by themselves; they have to be taken in the context of how much testing is done, and test positivity rate.”
***
The latest data from India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare show that there were 281,386 new Covid-19 cases and 4,106 new deaths in the country in the past 24 hours recorded on May 17 at 8 AM, taking their cumulative totals to 24,965,463 cases and 274,390 deaths respectively.
Total recoveries have improved to reach over 21.17 million (21,174,076 or 84.81%) had while active cases have declined to reach over 3.51 million (3,516,997, or 14.09% of the total). The case fatality rate has, however, increased to 1.10%.
Twenty of the 23 states with total caseloads of more than 100,000 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 Maharashtra (34,389), Tamil Nadu (33,181), Karnataka (31,531), Kerala (29,704), Andhra Pradesh (24,171), West Bengal (19,117), Odisha (11,732), Uttar Pradesh (10,505), Rajasthan (10,280), Haryana (9,115), Gujarat (8,210), Madhya Pradesh (7,106), Punjab (6,950), Bihar (6,894), Delhi (6,456), Chattisgarh (4,888), Jammu and Kashmir (4,147), Uttarakhand (4,047), Telangana (3,816), Assam (3,650), Himachal Pradesh (2,378), Jharkhand (2,321), Puducherry (1,961), and Goa (1,314).
Nine other states/Union Territories have reported more than 100 new cases in the last 24 hours, namely Manipur (677), Chandigarh (664), Meghalaya (569), Sikkim (340), Tripura (335), Nagaland (241), Arunachal Pradesh (180), Mizoram (149), Ladakh (119), and Dadra And Nagar Haveli And Daman And Diu (103).
Twenty-nine states/Union Territories have reported 5 or more Covid-19 deaths each in the last 24 hours, namely Maharashtra (974), Karnataka (403), Tamil Nadu (311), Uttar Pradesh (308), Delhi (262), Punjab (202), Uttarakhand (188), Rajasthan (156), West Bengal (147), Chattisgarh (144), Haryana (139), Andhra Pradesh (101), Kerala (89), Bihar (89), Gujarat (82), Madhya Pradesh (79), Himachal Pradesh (70), Jammu and Kashmir (59), Assam (56), Jharkhand (48), Goa (43), Puducherry (32), Telangana (27), Odisha (19), Meghalaya (19), Manipur (16), Nagaland (13), Chandigarh (10), Arunachal Pradesh (3), and Andaman And Nicobar Islands (3). 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.
***
The cumulative total of Covid-19 cases among Tibetans in India and Nepal has increased over the past two days by 133 to reach 3,510, according to the tally of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) on its Tibet.net website May 17. Of the total number of cases, 2,136 had recovered, 1,286 were active. Five more have died to take the fatality figure to 88.
***
Across the world the number of Covid-19 cases totaled more than 163 million (163,112,783) and the deaths over 3.38 million (3,380,404), according to the tally of Johns Hopkins University as of May 17, 2021 at 3:50 PM.
