Covid-19 cases on the rise in India; experts say no reason to worry

India reported 3,038 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours with active cases climbing to more than 21,179 cases across the country, said the union health ministry. The daily positivity rate has reached 6.12% as the increase in the pace of testing is reflected in the uptick in Covid cases.

The death toll has climbed to 5,30,901. While two deaths each were reported from Delhi and Punjab, one each was reported by Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra and Uttarakhand in a span of 24 hours and two reconciled by Kerala.

Punjab has also witnessed an uptick in the number of new infections by 13 times in less than a month. The number of active cases has also risen by 8.4 times. The positivity rate in the national capital stood at 14.37 per cent from a total of 2,895 samples collected, with 416 cases recorded. On Sunday, this shot up to 16.09 per cent, with 429 cases coming from 2,667 samples.

The number of Covid cases has increased gradually across the country with Karnataka reporting 1,372 active cases while Kerala has 6,229 active cases. Maharashtra has 3,532 active cases, Gujarat with 2,214 cases, Delhi has recorded 1,409 cases, Tamil Nadu has 993 active cases, and Himachal Pradesh has 785 cases.

 According to epidemiologists, the number of Covid cases is now doubling every 4-5 days. Scientists said that XBB.1.16 is the Covid-19 variant currently responsible. The population has a certain level of immunity and it is complicated by the fact that India is not testing every person with symptoms. While XBB.1.16 may be more infectious than other Omicron lineages, there has been no evidence of severity of disease, increased hospitalisation or increase in mortality.

Virologist Gagandeep Kang, in an interview, said the daily increase was not a cause for worry and the country is in an endemic stage for the last two years. India will see short-lived periodic surges, underscored Kang, and according to a study done her colleague at the Christian Medical College, two-thirds of people found to be infected with COVID-19 were asymptomatic. This, she considered, as evidence of the population having reached endemicity.

Status of Covid in Delhi

Nine of Delhi’s 11 districts have a positivity rate above 10%, with the highest being east (22.46%), followed by south (21.78%), central (19.19%), south-east (17.65%), north-west (15.98%), west (15.26%), north (13.15%), New Delhi (13%) and Shahdara (10.37%). Only two districts have positivity below 10% — north-east (9.4%) and south-west (4.77%).

The Covid the positivity rate went up to 18.53 per cent on Monday, with 293 of the 1,581 samples returning positive for the virus. Two more deaths were also recorded, taking the city’s Covid toll to 26,532.

Last week, Delhi health minister Saurabh Bharadwaj had said that the government has the capacity to increase sample collection but the currently there is no need for it. Health experts said that mass testing would not have much of an impact on tackling Covid cases, even in crowded areas.