India is finally seeing an early trend of decline in new COVID-19 cases and also in the number of deaths due to the virus, according to government data. Active COVID-19 cases in India dropped for the third straight day, with the country reporting 3,48,371 fresh infections on Wednesday. Active cases too dipped marginally by 4,000 to settle at 3.71 lakh.
New cases of coronavirus in India fell to 3.29 lakh after 14 days, taking the infection tally to 2,29,92,517, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Tuesday.
The best part is that this decline is being led by the states that have been among the worst affected in the second wave of the pandemic. Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Telangana are among the 18 states and Union territories showing continued plateauing or decrease in daily new COVID-19 cases.
The number of districts with a week-on-week increase in weekly tests and decline in positivity rate has increased from 73 (on April 15-21) to 182 (April 29- May 5).
Districts that are showing a continued decline in cases since last two weeks include Pune, Nagpur, Palghar, and Nashik districts of Maharashtra; Lucknow, Varanasi, Kanpur Nagar (Uttar Pradesh); Bhopal, Gwalior (Madhya Pradesh); Surat (Gujarat); Patna (Bihar); Ranchi (Jharkhand); Raipur, Durg (Chhattisgarh); and Kota (Rajasthan).
However, there are several states and cities that are showing a worrying trend of increase in COVID-19 cases.
Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Punjab, Assam, Odisha, Himachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, and Tripura were among the 16 states and Union territories showing a continued increasing trend in daily new COVID-19 cases, according to the government.
Whenever the COVID-19 daily cases numbers decrease, there is an apprehension that it may be due to the reduced number of tests. That is, due to fewer tests, there is a reduction in new COVID-19 cases. But this time around it's not the case.
On May 6, for the first time, as many as 4.14 lakh new cases were recorded in a single day. That day the total number of tests conducted stood at 18.26 lakh across the country. On May 10, the number of new cases was 3.29 lakh out of 18.50 lakh tests.
This means that the number of tests has not decreased but the number of new patients has come down. Therefore, it can be considered to be a good sign.