COVID-19 situation stabilising in country; positivity rate, daily cases, reducing, says Centre

New Delhi: The COVID-19 positivity rate has declined from 24.83 percent on 10 May to 12.45 percent on 22 May, the Union health ministry said on Saturday. Addressing a press briefing, Niti Aayog member (health) VK Paul said that though there has been an overall decline in case burden the positivity rate is still over 10 percent in 382 districts. The COVID-19 situation is stabilising with positivity rate, daily cases and active cases reducing, Paul said. Eight states have more than 1 lakh active cases while 18 states have over 15 per cent positivity rate, joint secretary in the ministry Lav Agarwal said during the briefing. On vaccine wastage, the ministry said Covishield wastage has reduced from 8 percent on 1 March to 1 percent now, while Covaxin wastage decreased from 17 percent to 4 percent in the same period Paul also said that children can spread the coronavirus but they almost always have a mild infection and mortality is very very low in them. On the vaccine passport issue, Agarwal said there has been no consensus yet on the matter at the World Health Organisation level, but discussions are going on. The daily rise in coronavirus cases in India remained below the 3 lakh mark for the sixth consecutive day, with 2.57 lakh new cases recorded in a single day, health ministry data showed. With the fresh cases, India’s tally of COVID-19 cases climbed to 2,62,89,290. The death toll due to the disease rose to 2,95,525 with 4,194 fresh fatalities, the data updated at 8 am showed. The active cases further reduced to 29,23,400 comprising 11.12 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate improved to 87.76 percent.