NEW DELHI, May 11: An early trend of decline in daily new COVID-19 cases and deaths has been noted in the country, the government said on Tuesday.
According to the government, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana were among 18 states and union territories showing continued plateauing or decrease in daily new COVID-19 cases.
Addressing a press conference, Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry Lav Agarwal, however, said Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Punjab, Assam, Odisha, Himachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Tripura were among 16 states and union territories showing continued increasing trend in daily new COVID-19 cases.
The number of districts with a week-on-week increase in weekly tests and decline in positivity rate has increased from 73 (on April 15-21) to 182 (April 29-May 5).
13 states have more than 1 lakh active COVID-19 cases each and 26 states have a positivity rate of over 15 per cent, the government said.
Citing the case of Pune, he said night curfew alone with no restriction on gatherings has shown less significance in terms of controlling the growth trajectory of daily new cases. He said stricter measures such as restrictions on mass gatherings and shutting of non-essential activities for a period of 15 days have helped reduce the rate of infection growth and the cases started plateauing.
India has been reeling under a calamitous second wave of the coronavirus infection. However, the daily numbers of deaths and infections have started to go down.
New cases in India fell to 3.29 lakh after 14 days, taking the infection tally to 2,29,92,517, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Tuesday. (PTI)
