India reports 5,880 new covid cases in a day; active cases cross 35,000

The country has reported 44.9 million covid cases so far and 530,979 deaths.

According to epidemiologists, covid-19 infections in India are doubling every 4-5 days and this has now led to the reporting of over 5,000 covid cases each day.

Scientists have said that the XBB.1.16 variant of coronavirus is responsible for the current surge in cases. But, the infection is said to be mild in nature and may not lead to a rise in hospitalisation rate as Indians have likely developed hybrid immunity due to vaccination and natural exposure to the disease. The Centre, however, has urged people to wear masks in crowded places and complete their vaccination doses.

The union health ministry has directed the states and union territories to follow a risk assessment-based approach to prevent and contain the infection. The ministry has advised state governments to examine the covid-19 situation at micro level (district and sub-districts) and maintain focus on implementation of necessary measures for prompt and effective management of covid-19 duly ensuring effective compliance.

“The five-fold strategy, i.e., Test-Track Treat-Vaccination should be followed with continued focus on adequate & proactive testing as per guidelines, monitoring new and emerging clusters of new Covid-19 cases along with monitoring the trend of Influenza-like illness (ILI) & SARI cases in all health facilities or through dedicated fever clinics on a regular basis for detecting early warning signals of the spread of infection,” the health ministry stated as there are few states which are reporting higher number of cases indicating possible localized spread of infection..

Around 4,41,96,318 people recovered from the infection with the current recovery rate touching 98.76%. The country has conducted over 85,076 tests in the last 24 hours taking the total trajectory of covid testing to 92.27 crore so far. Under the covid vaccination drive, more than 220.66 crore vaccine doses have been administered to the people across the country so far. In the last 24 hours, around 205 vaccine doses were administered.