'Not right time for relaxation of Covid rules: Centre's caution on global case surge
Twenty-two districts in seven states have reported an increasing trend in daily Covid cases for the last four weeks, says the government
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Business News/ News / India/ 'Not right time for relaxation of Covid rules: Centre's caution on global case surge
Noting that a surge in Covid-19 cases is being reported from some countries, pushing the global tally up, the central government said on Tuesday that now is not the right time for any kind of relaxation in safety norms.
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"If we look from a global perspective, the pandemic is far from over. There is a noticeable increase in the number of cases across the world, which remains the area of concern. We have to work on containing the spread of the virus with strictness," said joint secretary in the health ministry, Lav Agarwal.
Weighing on the same, VK Paul, member (health) of NITI Aayog, said: "The pandemic is far from over, globally. We have to be careful. We may be tired, but not the virus, this is an alert for us."
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The experts further reiterated that there has been a slowdown in the decline in new cases for the last few weeks. They said that there are 54 districts in 12 states and union territories, which reported over 10% Covid positivity rate for the week ending 26 July.
"The average daily new cases declined from 3,87,029 cases between 5 to 11 May to 38,090 cases between 21 to 27 July. In the past few weeks, there has been a slowdown/reduction in the rate of decline, which remains an area of concern," said Agarwal.
He went on to say that the northeastern states of Manipur, Sikkim, Nagaland, Meghalaya and southern state Kerala are causes of concern. Twenty-two districts in seven states have reported an increasing trend in daily Covid cases for the last four weeks.
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"There are still 62 districts in the country where over 100 cases are reported every day. These cases are found in a localised and limited set of areas of these districts," he said.
Speaking about the vaccination drive in the country, Paul said experts have pointed that vaccination and vigilance are the only two ways ahead.
"While no vaccine has a 100% guarantee, all vaccines, even our own, shows that the chance of serious disease is nearly eliminated. The chance of death is nearly eliminated," he said.
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"The fact is that when there is so much of viral replication, there are problems. Variants can emerge. And the vulnerable population in any part of the country remains susceptible. Avoid unnecessary travel. Avoid mass gathering," he said, adding that large-scale festivities should be avoided.
Covid situation in country
India recorded less than 30,000 fresh Covid-19 cases after 132 days while its active caseload fell below 4,00,000 after 124 days on Tuesday, according to health ministry data.
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The data updated at 8 am also showed that as many as 29,689 new coronavirus infections took the country's tally of Covid-19 cases to 3,14,40,951 while 415 fresh fatalities pushed the death toll to 4,21,382.
The number of active cases dropped to 3,98,100 and comprises 1.275 of the total infections. The national Covid-19 recovery rate improved to 97.39%, it stated.
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