Day after touching ‘historic low’, India’s Covid-19 daily count falls further to 29,163

17Nov2020

 

India on Tuesday recorded 29,163 new cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19). The countrywide tally now stands at 88,74,290, according to Union health ministry update at 8 am.

The number of active cases continue to stay below the five lakh-mark and the number of patients discharged patients has reached 82,90,370.

The country recorded 449 new fatalities due to Covid-19 which pushed the death toll to 1,30,519, according to health ministry.

The number of daily cases has been declining for six consecutive weeks, and Monday’s figure of 30,548 was a “historic low”, the health ministry said. A tweet from the ministry’s official handle presented a graph of the number of daily cases from August to November 16 which shows the cases rising till mid-September and then falling down.

The single-day peak in coronavirus cases was reported on September 17 with 97,984 fresh cases of Covid-19 and since then India has been witnessing a decline in the caseload.

Also, the trend of daily Covid-19 recoveries outpacing the daily infections continued for the 44th day on Monday when the country recorded 30,548 cases of the infection. The number of recovered patients stood at 43,851.

Meanwhile, the Centre has formed multi-disciplinary teams to visit all private hospitals in Delhi to check the status of compliance of various directions issued by Union Health Ministry for testing and treating Covid-19 patients.

The teams have been asked to start their visit immediately and submit reports within two days along with specific details, according to the Union home ministry. The Centre has devised a strategy to check the spread of the disease in the national capital, which has seen an alarming rise in the number of daily cases of Covid-19.

There is more good news on the vaccine front as US-based biotechnology firm Moderna Inc on Monday said its vaccine candidate has been found to be 94.5 per cent effective in preventing Covid-19. The announcement was based on phase 3 trials.

This comes just a week after Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE announced that their vaccine candidate was more than 90 per cent effective in preventing the coronavirus disease.