India’s daily new Covid cases dip below 50,000
There were a total of 45,486 new cases detected across India on Saturday, according to HT’s Covid-19 dashboard. This was the first time since January 3, exactly 40 days ago, that there were fewer than 50,000 cases in a single day.
After a gap of 40 days, the daily Covid-19 case tally in India dropped below the 50,000-mark on Saturday, as case numbers around the country in the third wave of the viral outbreak continued to contract.
In another significant development, the number of daily deaths due to the infectious disease in the country appears to have peaked and has begun showing a drop, according to data.
There were a total of 45,486 new cases detected across India on Saturday, according to HT’s Covid-19 dashboard. This was the first time since January 3, exactly 40 days ago, that there were fewer than 50,000 cases in a single day. For context on how much this number has dropped in recent days, just 23 days ago, there were more than five times as many cases – on January 20, there were 347,487 new infections of Covid-19 detected across India.
With this, the seven-day average of daily cases has now dropped to 63,446 for the week ended Saturday. This number, which is used to denote a region’s case curve, has now dropped 80% from the peak level of 312,180 cases a day (on average) seen for the week ended January 25. In simpler terms, in less than three weeks since it touched the peak, the Indian case curve has already shrunk to nearly a fifth of its volume.
The last time India’s case curve was at this level was for the week ended January 6, or 47 days ago, HT’s data shows.
After Saturday’s additions, the total number of cases touched 42,629,901, with a total of 508,696 reported deaths.
The contraction has started to become visible in the national death rate as well. A total of 650 people were reported to have lost their lives to the disease on Saturday – the lowest single-day death toll in 16 days. An average of 950 people have lost their lives to Covid-19 in the past week – a drop of 16% from a peak of 1,133 average daily deaths for the week ended February 2 (the highest this number soared to in the third wave).
To be sure, the drop in daily deaths is considerably smaller compared to the contraction seen in daily cases because, generally, the trend in deaths reflects a two-week lag in rise or drop seen in cases.
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The larger trend is visible in the drop in India’s test positivity rate – a crucial statistical indicator that reflects the on-ground prevalence of the virus. On Saturday (the latest this figure can be calculated), the daily test positivity rate in the country was 3.5%. This is not only below the World Health Organization’s threshold of 5%, but also marks a 17.5 percentage point drop from the figure recorded on January 23, when more than a fifth (20.9%) of all samples tested in the country were returning positive.
Active cases – those Covid patients currently carrying the infection – meanwhile, have dropped more than 75% from the peak levels (for the third wave) seen on January 23, when this number soared to nearly 2.3 million.
A closer look at numbers from the states shows that like all averages, the national figure hides a large variation in drop in infections.
Tripura is the state that has reported the biggest contraction in the country in proportion to its third wave peak, data shows. The seven-day average of daily cases has dropped 98% from a peak of 1,087 cases a day for the week ended January 22. In West Bengal, cases have dropped 93% from 21,715 cases a day for the week ended January 15. Bihar is on the third spot with a 96% contraction in daily infections from a January 15 peak of 23,529. Delhi and Assam have similarly recorded contractions of 95% each, data shows.
The smallest contraction (the third wave has now clearly peaked in each of India’s state and territories) is seen in Mizoram, where the seven-day average of daily cases has receded 17%, followed by Ladakh (contraction of 53%) and Kerala (57% recession in daily cases).