Consider global Covid declining trend with caution

While Covid-19 cases are showing a declining trend globally and in the South Asia region, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said that current trends in reported Covid-19 cases and deaths should be interpreted with caution. The international organisation added that several countries have been progressively changing Covid-19 testing strategies, resulting in lower overall numbers of tests performed and consequently lower numbers of cases detected.

Meanwhile, India continues to report the maximum fresh Covid numbers in the South Asia region, despite an 11 per cent decline in the region and 16 per cent at the country level, according to the weekly epidemiological report.

In the South East Asia region, the highest numbers of new cases were reported from India (33,926 new cases; i.e. 2.5 new cases per 100,000) followed by Indonesia and Thailand. Similarly, the highest numbers of new deaths were also reported in India (173 new deaths).

India’s active caseload currently stands at 36,126. Active cases now constitute 0.08 per cent of the country’s total Positive Cases, according to union health ministry data. At least 3,011 new cases were reported in the last 24 hours.

The weekly positivity rate in the country currently stands at 1.31 per cent and the daily positivity rate is reported to be 2.23 per cent.

“The number of cases have declined significantly, especially symptomatic cases. The decline will be slower considering the high population. The different variants and sub-variants will continue to circulate for some time. But what we have achieved in terms of vaccination, immunity and contracting asymptomatic or mild Covid illness is a sign that we are moving towards end of pandemic,” said Dr Akshay Budhraja, Senior Consultant, Respiratory & Sleep Medicine, Aakash Healthcare.

“This doesn’t mean that coronavirus will vanish, but the worst of Covid is about to get over. Having said that, newer vaccines need to be developed for broader coverage of different strains which in future may be area/region-specific,” he said.

Globally, the number of new weekly cases decreased by 11 per cent during the week of 19 to 25 September 2022 as compared to the previous week, with over three million new cases reported, the WHO update said.

The number of new weekly deaths decreased by 18 per cent as compared to the previous week, with just over 8900 fatalities reported. As of 25 September 2022, over 612 million confirmed cases and over 6.5 million deaths have been reported globally. Business Today