New Delhi, Dec 27: India registered the lowest single-day rise in COVID-19 cases in nearly six months at 18,732, while it is set to hold a two-day dry run from Monday in four states for its proposed ambitious vaccination drive likely to be kicked off in January.
The states put into place additional measures including testing of people arriving from abroad in the wake of a new strain of the virus detected in the UK.
To assess the readiness of the mechanism laid out for the COVID-19 vaccination drive, a dry run has been planned by the Centre on December 28 and 29 in four states – Punjab, Assam, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat.
The exercise will include necessary data entry in Co-WIN, an online platform for monitoring of vaccine delivery, testing receipt and allocation, deployment of team members, mock drill of session sites with test beneficiaries, the Union Health Ministry had said.
As part of the strategy that has been put in place to detect and contain the mutant variant detected in the UK, five per cent of the positive cases of COVID-19 from all states and UTs will be tested for Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS), the Union Health Ministry had said on Saturday after a meeting of the National Task Force (NTF) on COVID-19 on the issue.
Further, more than 50 samples of UK returnees are currently under sequencing at the designated laboratories.
In a statement, the Union ministry said on Sunday the country has reported a trend of sustained decrease in the number of active cases.
“India’s present active caseload consists of just 2.74 percent of India’s total positive cases,” it said.
The total recovered cases stand at 97,61,538. The gap between recovered and active cases, that is steadily increasing, is nearing 95 lakh and presently stands at 94,82,848, the ministry said.
The ministry said the daily new caseload dropped below 19,000 after six months. A total of 18,732 were added to the national tally in the last 24 hours. (PTI)
