Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, May 18: Brining great relief to the authorities and the people alike, the daily new Corona cases showed further decline and remained below three lakh marks for the second consecutive day on Tuesday giving reasons to believe that the worst of the second wave was over and the country was marching on the path of recovery.
The number of new cases recorded in the last 24 hours till Tuesday morning, as per the union health ministry, was 2.63 lakhs, down from 2.91 recorded on Monday which was the first below three lakh mark in the last 26 days.
The number of daily deaths, however, stayed above 4,000 mark for the past one week or so, contrary to the usual pattern of the fatality figures going up and down along with the surge or decline in the number of daily cases.
Monday’s death toll as reported on Tuesday morning, was the highest ever in the country so far with 4,329 casualties reported in 24 hours, breaking the previous record of 4,205 deaths on May 11. But the authorities pointed out that the recovery of 4.22 lakh patients in the last 24 hours was also the highest since the outbreak of the pandemic a year ago.
It has been 12 days since the daily count of cases peaked. The cases have been on a decline after that. Since the death curve usually has a two-week lag, it is expected that the death count would also begin to come down in a few days’ time. In the period, however, it is possible that this count goes up further, because lots of states are reporting deaths that happened a few days to a couple of weeks earlier.
Giving explanations about the continued high mortality rate that was causing anxiety among the people, official sources said the continued high death toll had nothing to do with the new Corona variant being “more killer” as many people believed, but it was because of the mistakes by the states in reporting the casualty figures in time causing accumulation of the death figures.
Maharashtra, for example, reported 1,019 deaths on Monday but of these, 289 deaths had occurred between Saturday and Monday, while 227 were from the week before that. Another 484 deaths happened more than a week ago, but had so far not been included in the state tally. The state also reported 19 deaths among Covid19 patients that were assessed to have been caused by other ailments.
Other states also reported deaths from previous days. There is an administrative lag in reporting of deaths that sometimes extends to several weeks. The 476 deaths reported by Karnataka, for example, included a few that occurred in March. Several of these were from April.
Right now, five states — Maharashtra, Karnataka, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu – have been reporting at least 300 deaths every day on average. On Tuesday, a relatively smaller state like Uttarakhand reported 223 deaths, though more than 80 of those were from previous days. Twelve states have been reporting 100 deaths or more.
The month of May so far reported 66,866 deaths in Covid making it the deadliest month during the pandemic. April was the worst month for India in terms of number of infections. Close to 70 lakh infections had been detected during that month. But its impact on mortality is being felt only now. In April, about 49,000 deaths were recorded.
While Maharashtra’s death toll, close to 85,000, far exceeds that of any other state, it is the neighbouring state of Goa that has recorded the maximum deaths in proportion to its population. Goa has so far seen 1,475 deaths per million population while Delhi has 1,301. These are the only two states to have more than 1,000 deaths per million population.
Meanwhile, the prime minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday through video-conferencing inter-acted with some of the state and district officials battling on the ground against the second Covid wave across the country.
During the interaction, the officials shared their experiences and apprised the Prime Minister about the innovative steps that were undertaken to manage the recent surge of cases. They also informed about the efforts being undertaken to augment the medical infrastructure and capacity building in rural areas. The Prime Minister asked the officials to compile the best practices and innovative steps so that these may be used in other districts of the country.
Addressing the officials after his interaction, the Prime Minister appreciated the dedication and perseverance shown by the nation’s healthcare workers, frontline workers and administrators during these difficult times, and urged them to continue working with similar vigour moving forward. The Prime Minister said every district in the country was equally different and has its own unique challenges. He said to the district officials, “You understand the challenges of your district much better. So when your district wins, the country wins. When your district beats Corona, the country defeats Corona.” He commended the officials who were working without taking any leave in spite of contracting COVID-19. He added that they are inspiration to many and he understands the sacrifices made by them.
The Prime Minister said that all the officials have a very important role in this war against Corona like a field commander of this war. He remarked that Local containment zones, aggressive testing and correct & complete information to the people were the weapons against the virus. At this time, the number of corona infections were decreasing in some states as well as increasing in several other states. So he stressed on the need to be more vigilant in the face of decreasing infections. He emphasized that the fight was to save every single life and the focus should be in rural and inaccessible areas. He requested the officials to make the relief material easily accessible for the rural population.
The Prime Minister advised the officials also to take care of the ease of living of every citizen of their district. He also spoke about how getting vaccinated was instrumental in lowering the severity of the disease and reducing hospitalisation and mortalities. He said continuous efforts were being made to increase the supply of Corona vaccine on a very large scale. He said attempts were being made to give a schedule of the next 15 days to the states in advance and stressed on the need to stop vaccine wastage.
The Prime Minister commended the way villagers were maintaining social distance in their farm. He said villages grasp the information and modify it according to their needs. This is the strength of villages.
The meeting was attended among others by the union home, health and defence ministers, chief ministers of several states, and a number of senior officials.
Meanwhile, the Delhi chief minister sounding an alarm on Tuesday urged the centre to immediately suspend flight operations between India and Singapore claiming that the new variant found in that country could usher in third wave in India particularly because the new variant was found to be equally dangerous for the children.
In a tweet, Kejriwal said, “A new variant of coronavirus found in Singapore is being said to be very dangerous for children. This can usher in the third wave in India. I appeal to the Central government to immediately halt air services with Singapore, and work on developing a vaccine for children on a priority basis.”
South Asian countries like Singapore and Taiwan, lauded as success stories in containing Covid-19, are both rapidly imposing aggressive restrictions at home – and tightening travel between each other.
In Singapore, indoor dining at restaurants has been banned and working from home will now be the default, as the city-state re-imposed lockdown-like measures it last ordered a year ago. Seven schools will switch to home-based learning to “ring-fence” those affected by infections, as the city-state makes plans to vaccinate those below 16 years.
Officials have urged Singapore residents to wear masks and avoid activities that require “masks to be down,” such as eating and drinking with others “for the next 3-6 weeks.” Singapore’s latest curbs, announced on May 14, will remain in effect for one month, until June 13, according to the health ministry. The country added 38 new local cases on Sunday, 18 of which are currently unlinked to known clusters.
On April 29, Singapore’s daily community cases of Covid-19 climbed to the highest in more than nine months, with a cluster formed in one of the biggest hospitals in the country and another from a worker at Changi Airport. This prompted the officials to put the country on heightened alert.
The outbreaks and virus-control measures threaten the reopening progress of regional travel. Singapore had previously allowed travellers from Taiwan to enter without needing quarantining. On Saturday, it announced a ban on the entry of short-term visitors with travel history to Taiwan in the past 21 days, while requiring citizens, permanent residents and long-term pass holders to quarantine when they arrive.