India May Have Crossed Covid-19 Peak in September, Finance Ministry Says After Analysing Data

The Finance Ministry on Sunday said that it is possible that India passed its COVID-19 peak in September as the number of daily cases has significantly decreased in the past one week.

It, however, cautioned that the pandemic was far from over. “The declining positivity rate at all-India level sets the stage to further push up the frontiers of economic recovery. For this, all stakeholders need to get into the act as remaining restrictions on access and mobility are further eased. More than social distancing it is self-protection with due precautions that better fits into the context of ‘jaan bhi aur jahaan bhi’,” the finance ministry said in its monthly report.

According to a report in Times of India, the finance ministry said that during the 14-day period from September 17 to 30, the seven-day moving average of daily positive cases had steadily declined from about 93,000 to 83,000 while the seven-day moving average of daily tests rose from about 1,15,000 to 1,24,000.

India’s Covid-19 tally on Monday crossed 66-lakh mark with a spike of 74,442 new cases and 903 deaths reported in the last 24 hours. Total case tally stands at 66,23,816, including 9,34,427 active cases, 55,86,704 cured/discharged/migrated cases and 1,02,685 deaths, Union Health Ministry latest report said.

On Sunday, India exceeded 140 tests per day per million population as advised by the World Health Organisation by nearly six times. Several states and UTs have demonstrated better performance than the national average, the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare has said.

The figures come amid criticism of the government over low testing even though the Centre has claimed that India’s daily testing numbers are one of the highest in the world. Higher testing numbers subsequently result in lowered positivity rate, it said.

The surge in testing has been made possible by an equally speedy expansion in the testing lab network across the country. India has as on date 1,623 labs in the country with 1,022 labs in the government sector and 601 private labs, the ministry said.