As many as 12 States in the country, including Kerala which accounted for more than 50 per cent of the daily cases reported in the country on Saturday, have a weekly test positive rate (TPR) of over 2 per cent, which is the national average. A week ago, only 10 States reported a TPR higher than the national average even though the national number was higher at 2.4 per cent.
As per the data available on Saturday, four States – Kerala, Manipur, Sikkim and Mizoram – have a TPR of over 10 per cent with Kerala having the highest, 14.4 per cent. All Northeastern States, barring Assam, have a TPR greater than the national average, indicating the grievous situation that exists in the region.
In the last 24 hours, six States reported more than 1,000 new cases in the country, of which Kerala had the highest at 19,451 cases. Other States with more than 1,000 cases were Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Karnataka. In the last 24 hours, India reported over 36,000 fresh Covid cases.
No let-up in cases
What is really worrying is the fact that the number of daily cases are not dropping for nearly a month. Even the number of daily deaths has been hovering around 500 for long. Till date, as per the official records, as many as 4,31,225 people have succumbed to Covid-19.
There was a lull in the vaccination drive on Sunday as the country celebrated the 75th Independence Day. The total number of vaccine doses administered in the country on Sunday were a little over 15.40 lakh till 5.30 pm, taking the overall number of inoculations so far close to 54.44 crore.
While there was virtually no vaccination in a number of States, some States like Gujarat and Kerala managed to vaccinate more 3 lakh beneficiaries. Among other States which crossed 1 lakh-mark on Sunday are Assam, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Punjab.
As of Saturday, more than 42.25 crore people in the country received first dose of vaccine, and 12.13 crore have received both the doses.
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