(TibetanReview.net, May31’21) – India’s stubbornly high death count in the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic is finally coming down. In the week ended May 30, nationwide fatalities dipped by 17%, the first decline in 12 weeks, while the daily death toll dropped below 3,000 after 34 days, reported the timesofindia.com May 31.
Also, the second wave is now receding across all states/Union territories except a few in the northeast and in Ladakh. Fresh cases fell for the third week running and this week’s numbers showed the most comprehensive decline yet as infections had started to fall in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Assam — states that had shown a rising trend till last week, the report noted.
With 12.95 lakh new infections recorded in May 24-30, the weekly case count registered a drop of 27% over the previous week, the steepest yet in the second wave, the report noted.
Meanwhile, questioned on its vaccine policy, the Central government has on May 31 told the Supreme Court that it will be able to vaccinate the entire adult population in India by the end of this year.
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The latest data from India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare show that the number of daily new cases had further dropped to 152,734, with the daily new deaths also having declined to reach 3,128 in the past 24 hours recorded on May 31 at 8 AM, taking their cumulative totals to 28,047,534 cases and 329,100 deaths respectively.
Total recoveries have continued to improve for the 18th consecutive day to reach over 25.69 million (25,692,324 or 91.25%) while active cases have further declined to reach over 2.02 million (2,026,092 or 7.58%). The case fatality rate has remained at 1.17% while the daily positivity rate was 9.07%, having remained below 10% for seven consecutive days.
All states and Union Territories except Manipur, Nagaland, Sikkim, Dadra And Nagar Haveli And Daman And Diu and Lakshadweep, have reported declines in active cases.
The country reported its highest ever daily new cases at 4,14,188 on May 7.
Eight states – one less than yesterday – continue to have more than 50,000 active cases, namely Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Odisha, and Assam.
Six states, namely Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and West Bengal, have reported more than 10,000 daily new cases this morning.
India is currently the country with the world’s second highest total number of Covid-19 cases after the USA, and the third highest total number of deaths after the USA and Brazil.
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The cumulative total of Covid-19 cases among Tibetans in India and Nepal has remained unchanged for the third day at 4,385, according to the tally of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) on its Tibet.net website May 31. Of them 2,942 had recovered while 1,329 were active. The number of those who had died was 114.
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Across the world the number of Covid-19 cases totaled over 170 million (170,384,848) and the deaths over 3.54 million (3,542,587), according to the tally of Johns Hopkins University as of May 31, 2021 at 13:54 PM.