India's Corona Cases On A Fall, But There Is A Catch
28,591 cases were reported in the last 24 hours, a sharp fall from Friday due to low testing.
A sharp fall has been seen in the new Covid-19 cases in India during the last 24 hours. 28,591 test reports came positive out of around 16 lakh tests conducted, making the daily test positivity rate (TPR) 2.17% and weekly TPR 1.87%. Total reported deaths stood at 338, taking the death toll to 4,42,655.
Kerala and Maharashtra Lead
Kerala has reported the highest number of cases in the country, 20,487 on Saturday, while Maharashtra came a distant second with 3,075 cases.
181 and 35 deaths have also been reported in the two states respectively. Maharashtra has seen the lowest daily case count since February 9 and also the lowest death count in the last 6 months.
Low testing
This sharp fall in numbers can not be understood as a fall in the virus' spread. Due to the low testing rate in India (particularly in Kerala and Maharashtra) in the last few days, low cases have been reported. Maharashtra conducted around 1.4 lakh COVID tests in the last 24 hours, which is usually 1.5 to 1.7 lakh.
In Kerala, new covid infections have seen a steady rise but the testing rate has been declining, from around 1.71 lakh on September 2 to 1.34 lakh on September 11. The daily TPR has been above 15% for the past many weeks, the highest in the country.
On the brighter side, Maharashtra is among the states administering the highest vaccine doses on a daily basis. On Saturday, 9,35,575 anti-corona vaccines were inoculated while a total of 6,76,64,505 doses have been given so far in the state.
Rising Infections
Apart from Kerala and Maharashtra, states like Tamilnadu (TN), West Bengal (WB) and Mizoram are seeing a steady rise in daily confirmed cases. In TN, daily cases have continuously risen from 1544 on Tuesday to 1639 on Saturday while WB reported 752.
Mizoram, on the other hand, reported 1,089 new confirmed infections and one death with 12,429 active cases now. The daily TPR in Mizoram rose to 13.98%, the highest after Kerala.
Meanwhile, India administered 64,49,552 vaccine doses till 7 pm on Saturday as per the official data. A total of more than 73.73 crore vaccines have been inoculated so far in the country, the Health Ministry informed yesterday. Over 5.75 crore (5,75,43,795) balance and unutilised COVID-19 vaccine doses are still available with the states and UTs to be administered.
