COVID second wave on the decline, but high death rate a worry

India saw a steep decline in coronavirus cases over the last week (June 6 to 12), making it evident that the second wave is indeed waning. Though the daily count has come down to less than a lakh, there is still a long way to go as deaths breached the 4,000 mark once again on Saturday (June12).

The overall number of coronavirus cases in India since the beginning of the pandemic is now nearing the three crore mark. As of June 12, the country reported a total of 2.93 crore cases, according to the official data. Out of these, about 95 percent or 2.79 crore patients have recovered or have been discharged from hospitals. The death toll is 3.67 lakh for the same period.

The daily number of fresh cases has been consistently below one lakh for the last week (June 06 to 12). The count came down to 82,156 on Tuesday (June 8), the lowest in months. The curve is flattening now.

India reported a total of 6.64 lakh new cases over the last week. For the same period, it reported 11.15 lakh recoveries. This huge difference between new cases and recoveries signals the rapid decline in positive cases over the last seven days. The maximum number of new cases for the week was reported on Sunday (June 6), the day when maximum recoveries were reported too. On Tuesday the difference between the two was above one lakh.

The trajectory of number of deaths in India took a very unusual turn during the week. The revision of data on deaths by Bihar resulted in an unprecedented spike in daily deaths due to the virus. India reported a total of 22,999 deaths in the last seven days. Out of these, a total of 3,951 deaths came from revised data while the rest (19,048 deaths) were from daily data collection. On Saturday (June 12) the death toll again breached the danger mark of more than 4 thousand cases in a day.

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The death rate (number of patients who died out of every hundred infected people) was constantly declining, but the trend has reversed in the last few weeks. On May 15, it was 1.09 percent while it has reached 1.25 percent by the end of this week. It observed a spike of about 0.05 percent in the last week.

The daily test positivity rate (TPR) of the country is below five percent, another sign of the pandemic subsiding. TPR is the number of positive patients per hundred tests. On Monday, it went unusually low at 3.20 per cent due to revision in the total number of tests by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). However, for the full week, it was between 4 to 5 percent, shows the official ministry data.

The country had administered 24.96 crore doses as of June 12. Out of these, 20.16 crore individuals have received their first dose while 4.79 crore individuals have received both doses, shows the Union Health Ministry data.

Among states, Maharashtra (2.55 crore doses) has reported the highest number of inoculations. It is followed by Uttar Pradesh (2.24 crore doses) and Gujarat (1.97 crore doses). A total of 11 states have administered more than one crore doses as of June 12. The Union government has aimed to vaccinate the whole population by the end of the year.

A total of 4,002 people died due to the infection on Saturday while 121,311 recovered. The country’s death toll now stands at 3,67,081.