In post-festive week, decline in India’s Covid cases slows to 1%

NEW DELHI: India this week reported nearly the same number of cases as in the previous seven days, recording a decline of just 1%, as infections rose in several states in the days following festivities.
The country recorded just over 1,08,500 fresh cases in the week ending Sunday (October 18-24), a drop of just 1,200 over the previous week’s tally of 1,09,760. In each of the preceding six weeks, India had seen double-digit fall in cases. Last week, infections had declined by over 27% while the week before had seen an 18% fall.
States that witnessed an increase in infections include Bengal, where the numbers were up 41% over the previous week, Assam (42% rise) and Himachal Pradesh (25%). There has been a slight uptick in cases in some states of south India. Kerala reported a 2.5% rise in weekly numbers, with 61,010 fresh cases this week as opposed to 59,521 in previous seven days. Karnataka saw infections increase by almost 4% over the preceding week.
Several other states where daily numbers have been very low saw a slight rise in infections during the week. In Delhi, there was a 9.2% rise in cases. Cases were up by nearly 60% in Chhattisgarh, by 9.4% in Punjab, 8.9% in Jammu & Kashmir and 6.7% in Bihar. In absolute terms, these states continue to report a low number of daily cases.
Bengal is clearly in the midst of a spurt in infections. It reported 5,925 fresh cases during the week, the highest seven-day tally in over three months since July 11-18.
There was a 60% rise in death toll this week, with 2,419 fatalities reported during the period as opposed to 1,515 in the preceding week. The rise is due to a large number of old deaths being added to the toll in Kerala as part of data reconciliation exercise.