Covid-19 cases have begun inching up in at least 12 states, rising from three last week, even as the country reported nearly twice as many cases in the week ending Sunday as in the previous seven days.
India reported more than 15,700 fresh cases in the week (April 18-24) as compared to 8,050 last week, an increase of 95%. This was the second week of rising cases after a steady decline for 11 consecutive weeks.
Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh accounted for a bulk of the new cases during the week, with most of the numbers coming from NCR cities. These were the only three states where cases had registered an increase last week. This week, nine other states reported a rise in cases, including Kerala, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Bengal, Rajasthan and Punjab.
Delhi recorded 6,326 cases this week, up 2.7x from 2,307 last week. Haryana logged 2,296 and UP 1,278 cases, both more than double the numbers reported last week. Together, the tally in the three states made up nearly two-thirds of all new cases in the country this week.
While cases have been rising over the past two weeks — it’s unclear whether this is mainly due to new Omicron sub-variants or a result of falling immunity because of a long gap since the second dose — there is no increase in fatalities from the virus as of now. Leaving aside deaths in Kerala (which is now releasing data only to the Centre), India reported just 27 fatalities during the week, the same as in the previous seven days.
Apart from the 12 states which saw cases increase during the week, numbers were inching up in eight other states/UTs, although these were still reporting less than 100 cases in a week.
Maharashtra reported a 48% increase in cases, with 996 reported during the week. Kerala reported at least 1,790 fresh cases (with Sunday’s numbers yet to come), up from 1,434. Karnataka logged 565 cases, up 71% from last week, while Tamil Nadu registered a 62% rise, Bengal 66% and Telangana 24%.
In the north, numbers were slowly rising in Rajasthan, which clocked 141 cases, a 57% increase from last week. In Punjab, the case count increased three-fold, from 56 last week to 170 this week. In the northeast, Mizoram reported 668 new cases, up from 520 in the previous week.
Active cases of the virus in the country rose from around 11,500 last Sunday to over 16,300.
After including cases from Kerala (from where data arrived late, via the Union health ministry), last week had seen a 13.4% increase in new Covid infections in the country.
