India reports 1509 new Covid cases
2 min read 25 Mar 2023, 12:13 PM ISTWith the uptick in the trend of Covid cases, scientists said that XBB.1.16 is the Covid-19 variant responsible for the present surge in Covid cases. However, scientists say that people in India have developed hybrid immunity
PremiumNEW DELHI: India reported 1,509 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours with a daily positivity rate of 1.33%, the union health ministry said on Saturday. With more than 44.8 million cases, the country has recorded more than 530,824 deaths so far.
The trajectory of Covid cases has increased gradually across the country with Karnataka reporting 635 active cases while Kerala has 2,186 active cases. Maharashtra has 1,763 active cases, Gujarat has 1,291 cases, Delhi has recorded 424 cases, Tamil Nadu has 549 active cases, and Telangana with 145 cases.
With the uptick in the trend of Covid cases, scientists said that XBB.1.16 is the Covid-19 variant responsible for the present surge in Covid cases. However, scientists say that people in India have developed hybrid immunity (due to vaccination and natural infection). Therefore, the present Covid-19 variants will not be able to cause hospitalisation and severity as it is mild in nature. However, the government has suggested people wear masks in crowded places and complete their vaccination doses if not done yet.
While active cases in India have climbed to 8601, the positivity rate is at 0.02%. Around 4,41,62,832 people have recovered from the infection with the current recovery rate touching 98.79%.
Last week, the union health ministry directed the state/UT government to follow a risk assessment-based approach to prevent and contain the infection. The health ministry advised the state governments to examine the situation of Covid-19 at a micro level (district and sub-districts) and maintain focus on the implementation of necessary measures for prompt and effective management of Covid-19 duly ensuring effective compliance.
“The five-fold strategy, i.e., Test-Track-Treat-Vaccination should be followed with continued focus on adequate & proactive testing as per guidelines, monitoring new and emerging clusters of new Covid-19 cases along with monitoring the trend of Influenza-like illness (ILI) & SARI cases in all health facilities or through dedicated fever clinics on a regular basis for detecting early warning signals of the spread of infection," the health ministry stated as there are few states which are reporting a higher number of cases indicating a possible localized spread of infection.
The country has conducted over 1,19,560 tests in the last 24 hours taking the total trajectory of Covid testing to 92.08 crore so far.
Under the Covid vaccination drive, more than 220.65 crore vaccine doses have been administered to people across the country so far. In the last 24 hours, around 9,497 vaccine doses were administered.
