After 40 days, daily Covid cases fall below 2 lakh

NEW DELHI: India recorded less than 2 lakh fresh Covid-19 cases on Monday for the first time in 40 days. The death toll too was the lowest in 27 days with 3,260 fatalities reported in the last 24 hours.
Meanwhile, Covid cases fell for the second straight week ending Sunday, registering a steeper drop of 22% than in the previous seven days (16%), in another indication that the second wave of the pandemic in the country was now firmly on the wane.
However, deaths from the virus continued to rise. In the week gone by (May 17-23), 29,331 fatalities coming to light, up from 28,334 recorded in the previous week.
Fresh cases detected in India in May 17-23 totalled 17,86,873, a sharp drop from 23,00,440 infections recorded in May 10-16. Weekly cases in the country had peaked in the May 3-9 week, when 27,44,545 cases were reported, as per TOI’s daily Covid database collated from state government figures. Last week’s cases thus marked a 35% decline from the peak.
On Monday, the country reported 195,994 new infections, the lowest daily count since April 13, when 1,85,295 cases were recorded. This was the first time since April 14 that India had recorded fewer than 2 lakh cases in a day. There were 3,260 Covid fatalities reported on Monday — not counting 231 old deaths that Maharashtra added to its total toll — the fewest since 3,286 deaths were recorded on April 27.
Active cases in the country dropped to below 26 lakh, with the number falling by more than 1.3 lakh on Monday itself as recoveries continued to outnumber thee fresh cases.