Covid cases plateauing in parts of country, says govt

Maharashtra, UP, Delhi, Chhattisgarh among 18 states showing continued plateauing or decrease in daily new Covid-19 cases

India is seeing an early trend of decline in daily new Covid-19 cases and deaths, the government said on Tuesday, indicating that the devastating second wave of the pandemic is on the wane, even as the country continues to record the highest number of daily coronavirus infections in the world.

New cases of coronavirus fell to 329,942 after 14 days on Tuesday, taking the total tally of Covid-19 infections to 22,992,517, according to the Union health ministry, with 10 states accounting for nearly 70% of the fresh infections.

However, according to a senior government official, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Chhattisgarh were among 18 states and Union territories (UTS) showing continued plateauing or decrease in daily new Covid-19 cases, even as Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Punjab were among 16 states and UTS showing continued increasing trend in new infections.

The total active Covid-19 cases in the country, too, dipped to 3,715,221 with a decline of 30,016 cases in the 24 hours to Tuesday, the first time it fell in 61 days, the ministry said.

Thirteen states have more than 100,000 active Covid-19 infections each and 26 states have a positivity rate of over 15%, the government said. Thirteen states -- Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh -- cumulatively account for nearly 83% of India’s total active cases.

The total recoveries in a span of 24 hours too outnumbered the daily new Covid-19 cases after 61 days. India’s cumulative recoveries surged by 356,082 on Tuesday to 19,027,304. Ten states account for 72.28% of the new recoveries, the ministry said.

The national mortality rate currently stands at a little over 1%. A total 3,876 fatalities were reported in a span of 24 hours and 10 states account for 73% of the new fatalities, the health ministry data showed. Karnataka saw the maximum casualties (596) followed by Maharashtra (549), it said.

Meanwhile, the cumulative number of Covid-19 vaccine doses administered in the country has increased to 172.7 million. The Centre on Tuesday appealed to states to prioritise vaccinating those due for second dose of Covid-19 vaccine and reserve at least 70% of the shots supplied from the central pool for the purpose.

The urgent need to address a large number of beneficiaries waiting for second dose of vaccine was stressed in a meeting held by Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan and Dr RS Sharma, the chairman of Empowered Group on Technology and Data Management to Combat Covid-19, with state officials to review the status of Covid-19 vaccination on Tuesday.

States were urged to “ensure all beneficiaries who have taken the first dose are prioritised for the second doses”, the ministry said in the statement.

professionals from the UK and India. “At some stage, when we publish the figures on the new points-based immigration system [introduced by the UK last year], you will see that India is benefiting enormously from this because it’s a professional route,” she said.

Patel also spoke of her plans for introducing a new legislation on illegal migration during the state opening of the UK Parliament on Tuesday, which she described as a “big reform” that will “facilitate the path for [illegal Indian migrants] to be returned back to India”.

“So we have many legal obstacles in the UK, I’m not going to sugar-coat that. These legal obstacles end up in the courts, people will use appeal, it is a complete legal merry-go-round,” she said. These reforms will streamline the process of identifying illegal migrants and also address “some of the extradition challenges that we have faced over years”, she added.

Asked specifically about the extradition of Nirav Modi and Mallya, Patel said many of the complexities and legalities surrounding illegal migrants also apply to both these cases. She contended she had changed the relationship between the UK and Indian governments in respect of extradition, and the British side was working to resolve these cases as speedily as possible.

“So we are absolutely clear of the importance and the significance of these cases and quite rightly, we want them to progress as swiftly as possible. It serves no purpose to keep having these cases tied up within the legal wrangling,” she said.

“I ordered on April 15 the extradition of Nirav Modi and... that’s in the public domain. He has indicated that... he’s appealing on extradition. So instantly, we’re in a legal process. So I can’t comment further on any of that whatsoever,” she said.

Asked specifically if Mallya had applied for asylum in the UK Patel said: “I can’t sit and share with you the ins and outs of all of that because that would prejudice the case. That’s not right and I don’t want to do that.”

Patel only said that there are “legal challenges” and “clearly we have to work with the courts and that is what we’re doing because we need just outcomes”. She added: “There are legal processes and the fairness and the firmness that comes with those legal processes need to be respected.”

Fugitive businessman Nirav Modi’s extradition was cleared after a British court found him guilty of fraud and money laundering in the Punjab National Bank scam. He was the second high-profile economic offender after former liquor baron Mallya whose extradition was cleared by a trial court in the UK.

Patel evaded a direct response to a question on whether the case of UK national Christian Michel, the alleged middleman in the Agustawestland VVIP helicopter deal, had been taken up with the Indian side after a UN panel ruled his detention was arbitrary.

“If you don’t mind, it’s not for me to disclose what is discussed in private meetings...there’s plenty of engagements around cases of that nature with FCDO [UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office] and those engagements will continue,” she replied.

in the 2010 census.

“The number of people aged 60 and above grew to 264 million, up from 177.6 million in the 2010 census, and the number of people aged 65 and above grew to 190 million, up from 118.8 million in the 2010 census,” the state-run tabloid, Global Times reported, quoting the new data.

Huang Wenzheng, a demography expert at the Beijing-based think-tank Centre for China and Globalisation, said: “That (the census data) means the official number of the births every year for the past 10 years were mostly accurate. It also means the downward trend is more significant than what we expected in the recent years.”

The two-child policy, which was implemented in 2016, has failed to make an impact on the low birth rates. “From the trend of population development in recent years, the population growth will continue to slow in the future,” NBS head Ning said. “China’s population will reach a peak in the future, but the specific time is still uncertain. It is estimated that China’s total population will remain at more than 1.4 billion in the near future.”

The severity of China’s ageing crisis is beyond anyone’s imagination, said Yi Fuxian, senior demography researcher from the University of Wisconsinmadison.“china’s adoption of one-child policy for four decades played a significant role by changing people’s views of childbearing; and, the economy, social environment, education and almost everything else relates back to the one-child policy. The willingness to give birth in Mainland China is lower than that in Taiwan and South Korea, and the contraceptive rate and female labour participation rate are higher than those in Taiwan and South Korea,” Yi said.

He Yafu, an independent demographer, told the Global Times that there is no doubt that China will “fully lift birth restrictions in the near future…likely to remove its family planning policy as early as this autumn during the sixth plenary session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC)”.

Fully lifting birth restrictions may not be enough to avert a fall in total population, or prevent China from becoming another Japan, demographers said, noting that Beijing should come up with more measures to encourage childbirth, such as subsidising couples who choose to have more than one baby.

A total of 679,000 census-related institutions were created in the country’s provinces, cities, counties, townships, and villages. Over 7 million census takers were organised to document demographic information door to door across the country.

The census does not include Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan residents, and foreigners who live in the Mainland’s 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities, the NBS said.

China conducted national censuses in 2010, 2000, 1990, 1982, 1964, and 1953.

incidents are being reported for the last one week from several villages in the area,” he said.

Similar concerns were expressed by Chaurasia. “In rural pocket, this has been taking place for the last one week,” he said.

A senior police official said a vigil would be maintained along the river stretch in Gahmar village. Locals have been asked to inform police in case they see anyone immersing a body in the river.

Meanwhile, a day after at least 30 partially decomposed bodies were found floating in Bihar’s Buxar district, the district administration fished out 71 bodies in the last 24 hours from the Ganga near Mahadeva ghat.

Buxar district magistrate Aman Samir said that a big fishing net is also being used to find more bodies.