COVID under check, but vaccination needs time: Centre

The second COVID wave is definitely subsiding, but India needs more time to ensure “high coverage” of vaccination for its population against coronavirus, the Union government said on Friday (June 4), stressing on the need for consistent containment measures, COVID-19 appropriate behaviour and improving vaccination pace to prevent cases from rising once again.

After two months of exponential rise in cases, the curve has flattened and cases have dropped to a level which can be managed with the country’s existing health infrastructure. Not just the cases, but deaths too have been declining. The death count has been consistently under 3,000 every day, after breaching the 4000-mark by the end of May.

About 43 per cent of people above the age of 60 and 37 per cent population above 45 years of age have received at least one vaccine dose till date, said Lav Agrawal, Joint Secretary, Union Health Ministry, at a press conference on Friday.

The country reported 1.32 lakh new cases in the last 24 hours ending 8 am on Friday, taking the country’s total infections to over 2.85 crore. The recovery rate stands at 93.1 per cent. Agrawal said that there has been a continuous decrease in districts reporting more than 100 average daily new cases. A total of 257 districts reported more than 100 daily cases. Presently, there are 377 districts reporting less than 5 per cent case positivity rate.

Also read: Vaccination drive in Karnataka, an exercise in vote-bank politics

Agrawal said that a 68 per cent decline has been noted in COVID cases since the highest reported peak of cases on May 7. “About 65% of new cases are coming effectively from 5 states and rest are coming from 31 States/UTs which indicates that we’re able to control the virus locally,” he added.

Dr VK Paul, a member (Health) of Niti Aayog said the number of people who have received at least one dose of vaccine in India is 17.2 crore. “We have overtaken the US in terms of the number of people in our country who have received the first dose of vaccine,” he said.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi showered praises on Indian scientists for making a made-in-India COVID vaccine in just a year. “India used to wait for years to get hold of innovations achieved outside, now our scientists working at a same quick pace,” he said.