Covid: India on downswing of 2nd wave, trend may hold even if curbs are eased, says govt

NEW DELHI: The Union health ministry on Thursday said that India is on downswing of second wave of Covid-19 and the trend will be sustained even when restrictions are significantly relaxed.
Addressing a press briefing, the Centre said India has recorded a steady decline in new Covid-19 cases for the last 20 days.
"24 states have reported decline in active Covid-19 cases since last week in India. While testing has increased manifold, steady decline in weekly positivity rate seen since last 3 weeks in India," health ministry said.

"It is reassuring that we are on the downswing of the second wave, and it will be sustained if restrictions open up systematically as the time comes," it added.
Speaking about mixing of Covid-19 vaccines, the Centre said if second dose of different vaccine is given, any significant adverse effect is unlikely, but more scrutiny is needed.
The Centre also responded to NYT report on Covid-19 toll in India saying it was "completely baseless, false, not backed by any evidence and is based on distorted estimates."
A report in the New York Times has suggested that India’s actual toll from Covid could be about double the official count in an optimistic case scenario and up to nearly 14 times the recorded numbers in a worstcase scenario. That would imply at least 6 lakh deaths and at worst 42 lakh deaths.
Meanwhile, India on Thurday reported 211,298 new Covid-19 cases. This was higher than nearly 2.09 lakh new cases reported on Wednesday.
The total infections in the country has now gone up to 2,73,69,093. The daily positivity recorded was 9.79 per cent- keeping under 10 per cent for three consecutive days now, the health ministry said.