Weekly COVID-19 cases have declined to their lowest in the country in over seven months, with a 12% drop from the past week. This was the first week since the week of March 1-7 when an average of less than 20,000 cases per day were reported in India.

The country recorded slightly more than 1.37 lakh new COVID cases in the week of October 4-10, dropping from 1.55 lakh in the previous week, according to TOI COVID database. This was the sixth week in a row of drop in cases in the country after a brief surge in the end of August.

Overall, 1,776 COVID-related deaths were recorded in the country from October 4-10, the lowest weekly death count since March 15-21, with a decline of 4.5% from the previous week.

During the week, the country registered a fall in cases in all major states, except for Bengal, where a marginal rise of 5% was reported. Kerala accounted for 54% of all new cases in the country, and saw weekly cases drop by 17.4% from the previous week. The state had less than 75,000 cases in the week for the first time since April 11-18. Maharashtra logged less than 20,000 cases in the week, which represents the lowest weekly total since February 1-7.

Mizoram also recorded a decline in cases after six weeks of surge, with 8,097 new cases during the week, coming down from 9,566 in the previous week. However, the state still registered the fourth highest case numbers in the country after Kerala, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. 

The weekly case count in Tamil Nadu declined to less than 10,000 for the first time since March 14-21, with 9,770 new infections recorded, a fall of 13% from the previous week.

Bengal noted a modest increase in case numbers. The state registered 5,097 new cases during the week, rising from 4,847 in the previous week.

Source: ET Healthworld