Centre says Covid situation improving, asks states not to let guard down

"Situation in the majority of the States are improving but still there are some issues of concern as a few states are still witnessing a huge number of Covid19 active cases and weekly positivity," said Lav Agarwal, joint secretary in the Union Health Ministry.

New Delhi:Even as India's overall Covid19 situation is witnessing an improving trend, the Union Health Ministry on Thursday cautioned against lowering guards as some States including Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Mizoram, and Arunachal Pradesh are still witnessing a huge number of daily positivity of cases.

"Situation in the majority of the States are improving but still there are some issues of concern as a few states are still witnessing a huge number of Covid19 active cases and weekly positivity," said Lav Agarwal, joint secretary in the Union Health Ministry.

He said that Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka are the four States which have been witnessing more than 50,000 active cases.

"These four states are still the major contributor in India's overall Covid cases," said Agarwal.

He said that 11 states are still registering active cases between 10,000 to 50,000. Only, 21 states are registering less than 10,000 active cases.

Agarwal said that the daily positivity rate of 20.75 percent recorded on January 24 has now decreased to 4.44 percent.

India's active cases load has come down to 7,90,789 from 8.92 lakh reported on Wednesday. "India has been witnessing less than 1 lakh cases in the last four days," said Agarwal.

He also said that number of districts witnessing more than 10 percent positivity has come down to 141 (week ending February 9) from 297 (week ending February 2).

The number of districts witnessing case positivity between 5 to 10 percent has also come down to 160 districts (week ending February 9) from 169 districts (week ending February 2).

At least 433 districts are registering less than 5 percent positivity week ending February 9.

Meanwhile, Dr. VK Paul, chairman of India's Covid19 task force said that the first homegrown Messenger RNA (mRNA) Covid vaccine is currently under final clinical trials. The vaccine, expected to get approval from drug regulators, is being developed by Pune-based Genova Biopharmaceuticals.

Dr. Paul reiterated that the high scale of vaccine administration has restricted the third wave of the pandemic.

"The number of vaccinated people during the second wave of the pandemic was not that high which made the situation critical," said Dr. Paul. As per government statistics, more than 171.28 crore total doses have been administered to date.

90.23 crore population aged 18 years and above got the first dose of vaccine, 73.29 crores got the second dose. Similarly, 1.61 crores precautionary doses have been administered to date.

As many as 5.09 crore population aged 15-18 years got the first dose and 1.05 crore have received the second dose.