NEW DELHI, Aug 15 (NNN-PTI) – India’s daily COVID-19 caseload, yesterday, decreased to 14,092, officials said.
According to the federal health ministry data, released yesterday, 14,092 new cases of COVID-19 were reported during the past 24 hours, taking the total tally to 44,253,464 in the country.
The cases reported yesterday mark a decrease in comparison to the daily caseload of Saturday, at 15,815.
With the reports of the fresh cases, India’s active caseload currently stands at 116,861.
The country also logged 41 related deaths during the past 24 hours, pushing the overall death toll to 527,037, since the beginning of the pandemic, the ministry said.
With the increase in cases, the daily positivity rate stands at 3.69 percent and the weekly positivity rate was recorded at 4.57 percent, the ministry data showed.
The ministry said, 43,609,566 people have been successfully cured and discharged from hospitals, of whom 16,454 were discharged during the past 24 hours.
According to the federal health ministry, the cumulative COVID-19 vaccination coverage in the country exceeded 2 billion doses and until Sunday morning 2,079,963,555 doses were administered.
So far, over 880 million COVID-19 tests have been conducted across the country.
A cumulative total of 880,282,103 samples have been tested up to Aug. 13, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said Sunday. Out of these 381,861 tests were conducted on Saturday alone.
Health experts say COVID-19 is a cyclical disease and will come in waves.
A survey carried out by a digital community-based platform said 63 percent of people in Delhi-NCR (National Capital Region) who participated in the exercise have said they did not undergo any test despite having COVID-19 like symptoms in the last 30 days.
With an increase in COVID-19 cases and the positivity rate rising in Delhi, the officials have started forming teams to strictly enforce the wearing of face masks and impose fines on violators.
On Saturday the local government in the northern Indian state of Punjab made the wearing of face masks mandatory in public places.
Last week, India’s federal health ministry wrote to the seven states including the capital Delhi asking them to ensure adequate testing, promote COVID-19-appropriate behavior and increase the pace of vaccination to contain the ongoing increase in cases.
The letter warned that the upcoming festivals and mass congregations in different parts of the country may potentially facilitate the transmission of infectious diseases, including COVID-19.
The federal government stated in the Indian parliament that given the emergence of COVID-19 variants with variable transmissibility and other public health implications, the health ministry was closely following the COVID-19 trajectory globally and in the country.
Health officials attributed the surge in new cases to people letting their guard down and not following social distancing norms.
Local governments in various states have issued advisories urging people to wear facemasks and follow COVID-19 protocols in mass gatherings in the wake of an increase in daily infections.
