Global Covid cases down 18% in a week; India sees 39% rise

While new Covid infections detected in India are up 39% in a week, global trends show the number of cases is coming down. Total Covid-19 new cases across the globe were 485,121 in the last seven days, 18% less than the 591,547 cases recorded in the previous week. The number of deaths also came down by 24% from 3,641 cases to 2,761 in the last seven days.

However, besides India, countries such as South Korea, France, Japan, Germany, and Mexico continue to experience a Covid upsurge. The sharp decrease in new cases globally is mainly due to the declining virus situation in the US. If there were 81,009 cases in the preceding seven days, new infections fell sharply by 54% to 37,587 cases in the last seven days. Deaths in the US also fell by 63%, from 931 to 347 deaths in the last seven days. Brazil, which had over 30,000 cases a week before, did not report any new cases in the last seven days, says data from Worldometer.

Now South Korea has the largest number of new Covid infections, 78,757 cases (+8%) in the last seven days and another 73,229 cases in the preceding week. However, deaths in South Korea were just 44 during the last seven days and 53 in the preceding week.

France and India are seeing the sharpest rise in cases. New infections in France increased by 34% in a week from 45,521 to 60,779 cases in the last seven days. The number of deaths in that country also increased by 134% during the period from 121 to 307 in the last seven days. India witnessed a 39% increase in the last seven days to 58,857 new cases, against 42,283 cases in the preceding week. Deaths also increased to 136 from 100 a week before, says the Worldometer data on Covid.

Japan is also reporting high infections, with about 58,459 new cases (+6%) in the last seven days and 55,395 cases in the preceding week. Similarly, Russia still has a high number of new cases, 48,841 (-13%) in the last seven days and 56,439 cases in the week before. However, Russia saw 259 deaths in the last seven days and 258 deaths in the preceding week.

Meanwhile, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare today said 38 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours, including 11 reconciled by Kerala. India had 10,542 new coronavirus infections, while the active cases increased to 63,562. New cases in the preceding three days were less than 10,000. The daily positivity rate now is 4.39% and the weekly positivity rate is 5.1% of total tests done in a week. Data says the country has 63,562 active cases and nearly 20,000 of these are in Kerala, Delhi (5,714), Haryana (4,558), and Uttar Pradesh (4,008).