After 4-week rise, Covid cases dip 20% in India

After rising for four weeks running, Covid-19 cases in the country fell by around 20% in the week ending Sunday as fresh infections dipped substantially in Delhi-NCR.

India is likely to record close to 18,500 new cases during the week (May 9-15), down from just over 23,000 in the previous seven days - arresting a rising trend that had begun in the April 11-17 week.

Covid deaths rose marginally to at least 34 (with a few states yet to report Sunday's data), up from 20 last week. The rise was mainly on account of Delhi reporting 16 fatalities during the week, the capital's highest weekly toll from the pandemic since February 21-27.

At the same time, Delhi reported a sharp 37% decline in fresh cases during May 9-15. The city recorded 6,104 fresh cases, down from 9,694 in the previous week as the Covid flare-up in NCR appeared to be on the wane.


Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, the two states where most NCR cities are located, too logged a decline in infections. Weekly cases dipped by 28% in Haryana to 2,593, while UP posted 1,351 fresh cases, down 23% from the preceding week.

While the sharp dip in these three states brought the national numbers down, cases continued to rise in several other states. Weekly numbers rose by 13% in Maharashtra to 1,562 while Kerala- its Sunday's data will be available only on Monday- is set to record the second highest count of new cases in the week at around 3,000, up from 2,516 last week.

Cases were also inching up in Gujarat (up 44% this week), Andhra Pradesh (44%), Madhya Pradesh (31%) and Bengal (8%), among others, although overall numbers were still quite low in all these states.

Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan were among states with a declining trend of cases during the week.

With the number of fresh infections shrinking, active cases of the virus in the country declined to around 17,300 from 20,400 last Sunday.