'We may be tired, but virus isn't': Centre says COVID-19 pandemic far from over, warns against laxity

The Union health ministry, noting a slowdown in the rate of decline of average daily COVID-19 cases over the past few weeks, said this is a cause for concern. It added that there are 54 districts in 12 states and Union Territories, which reported over 10 percent Covid positivity rate for the week ending 26 July.

“If we look from a global perspective, the pandemic is far from over. There is a noticeable increase in the number of cases across the world, which remains the area of concern. We have to work on containing the spread of the virus with strictness," joint secretary in the health ministry Lav Agarwal said.

“Early identification is one of the most important tools to ensure that COVID infected people do not become critical. Over 15.8 lakh COVID-19 tests are being done on a daily basis," he added.

NDTV quoted the chairman of the National Expert Committee on Vaccine Administration VK Paul chairman as saying: "The pandemic is far from over... globally. We have to be careful... We may be tired, but not the virus, this is an alert for us."

“The average daily new cases declined from 3,87,029 cases between May 5-11 to 38,090 cases between 21 and 27 July. In the past few weeks, there has been a slowdown/reduction in the rate of decline, which remains an area of concern,” Agarwal further added.

Twenty-two districts in seven states have reported an increasing trend in daily COVID cases for the last four weeks and this is also a cause of concern, the ministry further said. There are also eight districts, which were witnessing a decline in positivity rate, but are now seeing a rise in Covid cases, it said, adding that “we cannot take the situation for granted”.

Paul also pointed to a study conducted on 15 lakh doctors and frontline workers in Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC) who were administered Covishield.

Dr Paul said, "It revealed that there was 93 percent reduction in infection during 2nd wave which was driven by the Delta variant and 98 percent mortality reduction."

The government said India recorded less than 30,000 fresh COVID-19 cases after 132 days while its active caseload fell below 4,00,000 after 124 days on Tuesday, according to health ministry data. The data updated at 8 am also showed that as many as 29,689 new coronavirus infections took the country's tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,14,40,951 while 415 fresh fatalities pushed the death toll to 4,21,382.

The number of active cases dropped to 3,98,100 and comprises 1.27 percent of the total infections. The national COVID-19 recovery rate improved to 97.39 percent, it stated. The number of active cases fell by 13,089 in a span of 24 hours, it said.

The daily positivity rate declined to 1.73 percent. The weekly positivity rate was recorded at 2.33 percent, the ministry data stated.

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