Covid-19 Wrap-up: After two months of deaths and despair, second wave of Covid-19 ebbs

After nearly two months of death and despair, the second wave of Covid-19 in India finally seems to be registering a downward trend. Several states are gradually easing lockdown restrictions, while vaccination drives are also picking up pace.

Over the last seven days, India has witnessed a 33 per cent decline in the number of Covid-19 cases and a 65 per cent reduction in active cases, the Health Ministry said on Tuesday. Meanwhile, 15 states reported a positivity rate of less than 5 per cent. There has been a continued and sharp decline in daily new Covid-19 cases, which is an almost 79 per cent fall in the figure as compared to the peak of May 7.

Furthermore, India on Tuesday reported less than one lakh new coronavirus infections after a gap of 63 days, while the daily positivity rate dropped to 4.62 per cent, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Tuesday. However, the fatality rate is still quite high. Death figures have a built-in lag as many who were infected during the wave are succumbing to the illness weeks later.

Lockdown in Bihar, clamped over a month ago in view of the spurt in cases, will be lifted from Wednesday, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said. He, however, clarified that night curfew will be in place from 7 pm to 5 am.

Amid talks that Karnataka may start the unlock process by lifting restrictions after June 14, Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa is likely to hold a meeting in a day or two, to discuss the matter and take a call. "The Chief Minister, after discussing with everyone, will take a decision on what measures need to be taken in this regard, by taking everyone into confidence," Deputy Chief Minister C N Ashwath Narayan said on Tuesday.

Vaccine advocacy, faith building and community mobilisation were key elements in making sure that a remote and sleepy hamlet in north Kashmir’s Bandipora district becomes the first village in the country to vaccinate its entire adult population.

The Centre is considering a mechanism to allow air passengers who have got both doses of the Covid-19 vaccine to travel within the country without a negative test report, senior government officials said on Monday. Domestic air travel had reached around three lakh passengers per day by the end of February. However, the second wave of the pandemic has reduced it to around 85,000 passengers per day.

The Centre is also conducting a study to assess the presence of SARS-CoV-2, or novel coronavirus, in the Ganga as corpses were found dumped in the river during the second Covid wave, and were fished out from districts in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, officials said. The study is being conducted in phases and the first set of samples have already been collected from 13 locations in Kannauj and Patna.

India will need to spend an additional Rs 80,000 crore ($11 billion) to provide free vaccines and food to millions of people devastated by the deadly coronavirus wave, people with knowledge of the matter said. The government will earmark an additional Rs 70,000 crore for providing food to the poor and other eligible groups until November, said sources.

In a worrying development, hearing impairment, severe gastric upsets and blood clots leading to gangrene, symptoms not typically seen in Covid patients, have been linked by doctors in India to the so-called delta variant. In England and Scotland, early evidence suggests the strain — which is also now dominant there — carries a higher risk of hospitalisation.

In another noteworthy revelation, many more men in India have received Covid-19 vaccines than women, government data showed on Tuesday, highlighting gender disparity in the country's immunisation drive that has also disadvantaged the rural population. Many federally administered regions, Delhi, and big states such as Uttar Pradesh have seen some of the worst inequities. Only Kerala and Chhattisgarh have vaccinated more women than men.

Meanwhile, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday slammed the Centre for allegedly not maintaining transparency on Covid-related data, and asked why the government used it as a "propaganda tool" rather than for stopping coronavirus spread.