COVID-19: India records 41% decline in new cases in last one week

India in the last week reported a 41 per cent decline in new COVID-19 cases raising hopes for the country’s economy to revive.  

According to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) COVID-19 weekly epidemiological update, globally, during the week of 31 January to 6 February 2022, the number of new COVID-19 cases decreased by 17 per cent as compared to the number reported during the previous week, while the number of new deaths increased by 7 per cent. 
At a country level, the highest numbers of new cases were reported from the United States of America with a 50 per cent decrease, France with a 26 per cent decrease, Germany with a 22 per cent increase, Brazil with similar to the previous week’s figures and India (1 095 616 new cases) with a 41 per cent decline.  

“The highest number of new deaths were reported from the United States of America (14 090 new deaths; a 15 per cent decrease), India (7,888 new deaths; a 69 per cent increase), the Russian Federation (4686 new deaths; similar to the previous week’s figures), Brazil (4,610 new deaths; an 39 per cent increase) and Mexico (2,910 new deaths; a 48 per cent increase),” said the WHO report. The high death numbers were because of the backdated deaths added to the total tally, the WHO noted. 

 “The peak in hospitalisations and deaths typically lag behind the peak in infections, as the illness can be prolonged before some individuals, unfortunately, succumb. We should not look at this as a cause for alarm, as the fraction of individuals needing hospitalization and unfortunately passing away has been much lower than that seen in earlier waves, likely due to the protection offered by vaccination,” said Dr. Lancelot Pinto, Consultant Pulmonologist, P.D Hinduja Hospital & MRC, Mahim, Mumbai. 

“The so-called third wave, which was predominantly of omicron variant, is receding fast. An important trend that we noticed was that there were many cases who presented with non-COVID symptoms like a heart attack or stroke and were found to be COVID positive randomly, like on preadmission testing,” Dr Ravi Shekhar Jha, Additional Director & HOD – Pulmonology, Fortis Escorts Hospital, Faridabad said. 

Monster.com, a Quess Company, on Friday released Monster Employment Index (MEI), a monthly job analysis report. The report revealed that in the month of January 2022, online hiring demand saw a 10 per cent annual incline, indicating an encouraging outlook on jobs in India. While the global covid-19 pandemic also seems to be improving, public health experts also believe that lives and livelihoods have brighter chances to survive. 

“This simply means that if the mortality rate of a hospital is compared with the pre-COVID era, there is not much difference between the third wave mortalities and overall pre-covid era mortality. With huge vaccination drive in India, majority of urban population is vaccinated. Out clinical experience has shown us that vaccination certainly leads to reduced mortality. It is right time to gradually start the normalcy and continue educating and vaccinating masses,” he said. 

 At least 58,077 new coronavirus cases were reported in the last 24 hours. India’s Active Caseload is presently at 6,97,802. Active cases constitute 1.64% of the country's total Positive Cases, the union health ministry data showed. India’s cumulative COVID-19 vaccination coverage neared 173 crores on Friday. 

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