Don’t rejoice yet, govt warns Indians as COVID cases plateau

The health ministry has cautioned Indians against rejoicing as the COVID graph seems to be plateauing, warning that “the challenge has not ended yet”.

Lav Agarwal, joint secretary of the ministry, on Thursday said as much, pointing out that “on an average, 20,000 cases have been recorded daily. Of these 56 per cent cases were reported from Kerala last week”.

“Overall, positivity rate of the country was nearly at 1.68 per cent last week as compared to that of 5.86 per cent earlier,” he told the media, adding that Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Mizoram and Karnataka have more than 10,000 active cases currently, and Kerala alone has over a lakh active cases.

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“The challenge of COVID has not ended yet. To some extent, we say we have not controlled the second wave of COVID. We need to make continuous efforts. We need to be watchful in the months of October, November and December. We need to be alert,” Agarwal warned.

As many as 34 districts across nine states and UTs reporting a weekly positivity rate of more than 10 per cent, while 28 districts across 12 states and UTs are reporting a weekly positivity rate between 5 and 10 per cent.

Total active cases across India have fallen to the lowest in 204 days at 2,44,198.

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