Nearly Half of India's Total Covid-19 Cases Reported in Kerala Last Week | Top Highlights

The Union Health Ministry on Tuesday said 49.85 per cent of total cases of Covid-19 were reported from Kerala in the last week.

Here are the highlights from the government’s Covid-19 briefing:

• On June 1, there were 279 districts across the country where over 100 Covid-19 cases were reported but the number has come down to 57 districts now.

• Number of cases decreased in 222 districts. Case trajectory is seen in the limited area. There are 18 districts including 10 districts of Kerala where an increasing trend in cases is seen. These 18 districts constitute of 47.5% cases.

• Giving an overview of Covid-19 cases in states, Health Ministry Joint Secretary, Lav Agarwal said:

More than 1 lakh active cases-1 State

10,000 to 1 lakh active cases-8 States

Lesss than 10,000 active cases-27 States

• There has been an overall decline in trend observed across India in weekly positivity since the week ending May 10.

• Weekly positivity less than 2 per cent for the first time in the past three months.

• There are 44 districts in India that are reporting more than a 10 per cent weekly positivity rate. These districts are in Kerala, Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland among others.

• Speaking on the national vaccination drive, the government said the total number of vaccine doses administered in the month of July is more than double of that in May. “Total 47.85 crore doses were administered in the country incl 37.26 crores of first dose and 10.59 crores of second dose. We administered 19.6 lakh doses in May and 43.41 lakh doses in July. The total number of vaccine doses administered in July is more than double of that in May,” the government said.

• However, Agarwal noted that the pandemic is far from over. “A high number of COVID cases are being reported across the world and the pandemic is far from over. As far as India is concerned, the second wave is still not over,” he said.

• India’s reproductive number that denotes spread of Covid-19 is more than 1 in eight states including Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

• Growth rate and active cases are also assessed using Reproduction (R) Number. It is the average number of new infections generated by one infected individual during the entire infectious period, explained Lav Agarwal. A number of one or below one indicates a slowly spreading virus while any number above 1 indicates a rapid spread.

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