New Delhi: After declining for six consecutive weeks, covid-19 cases increased world over for the first time last week. India, on the other hand, reported a rise two weeks prior to the global jump, the World Health Organization (WHO) has pointed out.
The surge in cases appeared simultaneously with the expansion of the covid-19 program in India. Even during the sixth week when cases were declining globally, the South-East Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean regions showed a 2% and 7% increase, respectively.
In the fifth week, India was one of the countries reporting the highest number of new cases at 86,711, a 10% increase, while France recorded 131,179 new cases, a 3% increase.
“In the past week, the number of reported cases of covid-19 increased for the first time in 7 weeks. You remember that I reported the virus was declining for 6 consecutive weeks, but for the first time in 7 weeks, we have an increase," said Tedros Adhanom, Director general of the WHO.
“Reported cases increased in four of WHO’s six regions: the Americas, Europe, South East Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean – so we don’t report increases in Africa and the Western Pacific," he said.
According to the Johns Hopkins live tracker of the highly infectious disease, over 114,417,054 people remained affected across the globe in 192 countries, and the number of casualties stood at 2,537,563. India alone has so far reported over 1,11,23, 653 cases and 157,276 deaths.
Vaccination programs are underway in several parts of the world and regions witnessing a surge are running aggressive inoculation drives which might set a sense of complacency among the population, the apex global public health agency noted.
“Vaccines will help to save lives, but if countries rely solely on vaccines, they’re making a mistake," Tedros warned, underlining the importance of basic public health measures such as testing, contact tracing, wearing masks and avoiding crowds.
“For public health authorities, that means testing, contact tracing, isolation, supported quarantine and quality care. For individuals, it means avoiding crowds, physical distancing, hand hygiene, masks and ventilation," said the WHO chief.
Scientists in India still are hopeful that the pandemic will recede again by the end of March. “Publicly available data on the progression of the covid-19 pandemic, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, indicates that the number of infections in India peaked sometime in September 2020, and has been consistently declining ever since. From a maximum of 97,655 daily new cases on September 11, 2020, the daily new case count is 11,924 on February 6, 2021, with half of it from Kerala," said Rajeeva L. Karandikar, a noted mathematician, statistician and director at the Chennai Mathematical Institute.
According to the projections of the covid-19 National Supermodel Committee set up by the Department of Science and Technology, the number of active cases will drop to the low tens of thousands by the end of March, he said.
With swelling number of fresh covid-19 cases, India appears to mimic the characteristics of countries which have already witnessed or are witnessing the second wave of coronavirus infections.
“All this connotes only the end of the first phase of our fight against the virus. It is crucial to ensure that the number of cases does not start increasing again, as it has in many countries such as Italy, the UK, and the USA," M Vidyasagar, distinguished professor at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad said.
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