Covid 19: The Rising Graph

The threat of the Covid pandemic is not over and complacency must be avoided with eligible persons urged to take the third or precaution dose of the anti-Covid vaccine, the government has said while pointing to the rising graph of cases in states like Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.

Officials said that though the current case positivity rate was under 5%, as many as 107 districts were reporting a rate between 5-10% in the week ending July 25. They also said that there has been an uptick in cases in Europe and US and the slack response to the precaution doses has led to the government launching a special 75 day drive.

At present, the disease is under control in India as the variants in circulation are those of Omicron and are seen to have weakened. However, as immunity from the initial two doses wanes, there is a need to take the precaution shot. This may be less significant for the younger and healthy population but has implications for the elderly and others who have weaker immunity. A younger person can carry the infection home to house-bound elders.

The four states mentioned account for more than 40% of cases in India and there is a need to double down on districts that are consistently in the red zone of case positivity rates. Cases are also rising in Karnataka and Odisha at around 1.25X, said ministry of health and family welfare officials.

There is a slight tapering of daily active cases in the last few days but the number which on July 25 stood at 1,47,512 is still higher than 1,32,457 on July 13.

There has been a fairly steep rise in Covid cases globally since May and the average daily cases in the last one week stands at 11,06,309 and the active cases in July 25 were 9,88,960.