India reported 5,676 new cases in the past 24 hours, taking the active tally to 37,093, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Tuesday. With the addition of new cases, India’s total Covid-19 tally reached 4,47,68,172. This is the ninth week in a row of rising since Covid cases started rising in the country.
The daily positivity rate was at 2.88 per cent and the weekly positivity rate was 3.81 per cent). The active cases stand at 0.08 per cent and recovery rate currently is 98.73 per cent.
Covid-19 infections witness a 79 per cent spike in India in the past week, with over 36,000 new cases added to the tally. With 36,250 fresh cases this week, the country reportedly recorded the highest increase in weekly count in nearly seven months, as the coronavirus cases again started witnessing a hike a few weeks ago. A week prior to that, 20,293 cases were reported in the country.
The number of new coronavirus cases increased rapidly in states/UTs where the infection rate had been relatively low so far, according to a report by Times of India.
As per the report, in Rajasthan, Covid-19 cases during the week rose to 631, witnessing over a three-fold increase from 194 cases a week prior to that.
This was followed by Chhattisgarh, which reported 462 this week, up from 113 in the previous week, Odisha where 597 cases were reported compared to 193 before that and Jammu and Kashmir where cases were 413 this week, up from 129 before that, the TOI report said.
Meanwhile, the maximum spike in the country was witnessed in Kerala, which for the second straight week logged the highest number of new cases at 11,296, 2.4 times more than over the previous week.
This was followed by Maharashtra, which witnessed a 32 per cent spike in cases with 4,587 infections, Delhi by 94 per cent with 3,896 infections, Haryana by 147 per cent with 2,140 infections and Gujarat with 2,039 infections.
However, the facility rate remained low in the country, with 68 deaths reported during the week. Of these, Maharashtra accounted for 15, Delhi 10, Himachal Pradesh eight, Gujarat six and Karnataka five.
Nationwide Covid Mock Drill at Hospitals to Take Stock of Preparedness
In view of the rising cases, mock drills to take stock of hospital preparedness were held in several public and private facilities across the country on Monday, with Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya visiting the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital here to review the measures taken to combat the disease.
In a review meeting held on April 7, the health minister had urged state health ministers to visit hospitals and oversee the mock drills on April 10 and 11.
In the meeting with state health ministers, and principal and additional chief secretaries held virtually, Mandaviya had stressed on identifying emergency hotspots by monitoring trends of influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) cases, ramping up testing and vaccination, and ensuring readiness of hospital infrastructure.
Besides enhancing genome sequencing and ramping up whole genome sequencing of positive samples, he had also laid stress on creating awareness about following Covid-appropriate behaviour. During the meeting, states and Union territories were informed that the World Health Organisation (WHO) was closely tracking a variant of interest (VOI), XBB.1.5, and six other variants (BQ.1, BA.2.75, CH.1.1, XBB, XBF and XBB.1.16).
It was highlighted that while Omicron and its sublineages continue to be the predominant variants, most of the assigned variants have little or no significant transmissibility, disease severity or immune escape. The prevalence of XBB.1.16 increased from 21.6 per cent in February to 35.8 per cent in March. However, no evidence of an increase in hospitalisation or mortality has been reported, the ministry had said in a statement.
During the meeting, it was observed that 23 states and Union territories have testing rates that are lower than the current national average of 100 tests per million people.
Mandaviya had said that irrespective of the new variants, the five-fold strategy of ‘Test-Track-Treat-Vaccinate and adherence to Covid-Appropriate Behaviour’ continued to remain the tested strategy for Covid management.
The states/Union territories were also requested to expeditiously increase the rate of testing and increase the share of RT-PCR in tests.
(With PTI inputs)
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