India adds 10,000 Covid-19 cases first time in months
New Delhi, June 16 (EFE).- India Thursday added more than 10,000 coronavirus infections after months of sustained decline in the daily number of Covid-19 cases.
The federal health ministry said 12,213 people tested positive for the virus in the last 24 hours from Wednesday – a relatively low figure compared to the previous waves when daily cases breached 400,000 infections.
However, it was for the first time since February end when the country reported more than 10,000 cases after recovering from a third wave sparked by the highly-infectious Omicron variant of the virus.
Most new cases were detected in the western state of Maharashtra (4,024) and the southern state of Kerala (3,488).
Capital New Delhi reported more than 1,000 infections for the second consecutive day.
The rebound in daily cases comes after India’s Covid genome sequencing facility detected the new sub-variants of Omicron in May.
However, active cases still account for 0.1 of all infections and the positivity rate stands at 2.35 percent.
India went through a deadly wave of infections in mid-April and May 2021 when daily cases breached the 400,000-mark.
Daily deaths reached 4,500 during the second wave, leaving horrific images of hospitals on the verge of collapse amid shortages of beds, medicine, and medical oxygen.
People jostled for spaces in crematoria for the last rites of their loved ones.
The country was in the grip of the third wave driven by the Omicron variant when daily cases shot up to more than 300,000 in January.
As the cases declined, the authorities eased restrictions and allowed the resumption of international commercial flights along with lifting the mandatory use of masks.
But some metropolises like New Delhi re-imposed the face cover measure a few weeks ago.
India has added 43.2 million cases since the pandemic began, making it the second worst-affected nation after the United States (85 million infections).
The virus has claimed 524,803 lives in India – the third-highest toll after the US (more than 1 million) and Brazil (668,693). EFE
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