Three weeks of China scare, no COVID rise in India

New Delhi: Nearly three weeks after Indian health authorities stepped up vigil in the wake of a major COVID-19 surge in China, there’s no sign of an uptick in infections in the country. The week ending Sunday saw a slight decline in fresh cases in India after two weeks of a marginal rise, with overall numbers remaining extremely low.

India reported 1,268 fresh cases during the week as compared to 1,526 in the previous one. The case count has remained below 2,000 for the past six weeks now. Karnataka, where new cases had more than doubled last week, has since reported a decline, as per TOI’s COVID database.

There were 12 COVID deaths in the country as opposed to six in the previous week. Weekly fatalities from the virus have stayed under 50 since the second week of November.

Kerala continued to register the highest number of cases and deaths, although case numbers have been falling in the state. In the week gone by (January 2-8), 383 cases were detected in the state as compared with 467 in the preceding seven days. Kerala reported seven COVID deaths during the week.

Karnataka reported 225 new infections, down from 276 in the previous week. That week (December 26-January 1), the state had witnessed a sharp increase in cases, from 116 in the preceding seven days. Maharashtra reported 132 cases, down from 168 in the previous week. Delhi case numbers too declined to 48 in the week from 81. India hasn’t seen a major spurt in Covid cases since July 2022, when the weekly count had peaked at 1.36 lakh.

Global cases too have now been falling for the past two-three weeks although the real picture of COVID in China may not be reflected in its official numbers. Japan continued to report the highest number of fresh cases in the last seven days at nearly 1.2 million, up 14 per cent from the preceding week, as per worldometers.info. South Korea had the second-highest case number during the week at over 400,000 while China was 11th in the list with nearly 54,000 cases, up 52 per cent in a week.