India's Covid curve continues to offer better news with the number of active cases dropping to below nine lakh on Thursday, depicting a steady trajectory of declining actual case-loads for almost three weeks now even though some states pose concerns with high positivity rates. With a larger number of recoveries as compared to new cases being reported daily, a sustained declining trend can be seen in active cases. While 70,496 new patients were added on Thursday, 78,365 were discharged on the same day. With 8.93 lakh active cases, the count is below 9 lakh for the first time after a month. The weekly average of new cases has been less than the average number of daily recoveries for the last three weeks. Also, the weekly average of fresh cases itself has been falling. For instance, during October 2-8 the average new cases dropped to 5.23 lakh from over 6.14 lakh during September 18-24. "This is the result of collaborative action by states and UTs under the Centre's strategy of comprehensive testing, tracking, quick hospitalization and adherence to the standard treatment protocol which has ensured a standardised quality of medical care across public and private hospitals and for home isolation cases," the health ministry said. On Thursday, India recorded an average positivity of 6.53%, whereas Goa recorded the highest positivity rate at 30.20%. The total number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 stood at 69,06,151, which includes 1,06,490 deaths from the infection so far. On Thursday, 964 case fatalities were reported. While seven states and UTs have a positivity rate below 5%, a total of 22 have positivity below the national average. However, states and UTs like Goa, Maharashtra, Chandigarh, Nagaland and Kerala continue to report high positivity rates. This was followed by Sikkim at 19.82%, Maharashtra at 17.58%, Chandigarh at 14.97%, Nagaland at 13.64% and Kerala at 13.08%. Majority 78% of new cases were reported from 10 states and UTs, underlining the concentration of the disease burden in few states. In fact, Maharashtra continues to be the state reporting a high number of new cases.