Weekly drop of 13%, but new cases still highest globally

Tribune News Service

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New Delhi, May 19

The World Health Organisation today said India’s new cases had declined by 13 per cent over a week— still the highest globally — while deaths had risen 4 per cent in a week. The WHO said worldwide in the past week, the number of new cases and deaths continued to decrease with just over 4.8 million new cases and just under 86,000 new deaths reported, a 12 per cent and 5 per cent decrease, respectively, compared to the previous week.

The South-East Asia region reported over 2.5 million new cases and over 30 000 new deaths, a 12 per cent decrease and a 7 per cent increase, respectively, in a week. Case incidence in the region (which has 11 nations, including India) decreased after nine consecutive weeks of increase, although the absolute number remains at its highest level since the beginning of the pandemic.

Edit: Save the life-savers

Death incidence continued to increase for a ninth consecutive week with the highest numbers of new cases reported from India (23,87,663 new cases; 173.0 new cases per 1,00,000; a 13% decrease). Noting that despite the declining trend over the past three weeks, the incidence of cases remained at some of the highest levels since the start of the pandemic, the WHO recommended a close watch on variants.

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“Virus evolution is expected, and the more SARS-CoV-2 circulates, the more opportunities it has to evolve. Public health surveillance mechanism remains critical to curb the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and its variants,” the WHO said on a day when India’s daily recoveries outnumbered daily new cases for the sixth day in a row with 3,89,851 recoveries as against 2,67,334 new cases in 24 hours.

Continuing the positive trend, India recorded less than 3 lakh new cases for three consecutive days. Ten states accounted for 74.46 per cent of new cases in the past 24 hours, with Tamil Nadu reporting the highest daily new cases at 33,059 followed by Kerala with 31,337.

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