Impact of polls, festivals on Covid may be seen in coming weeks: Govt

New Delhi: The Union Health ministry on Tuesday in its routine briefing on the country's Covid situation said over 12.65 crore tests have been conducted so far and the cumulative positivity rate has come down to 7.01 per cent.

Reiterating the need to be careful and properly implement "Covid appropriate behaviour", the Health ministry highlighted that the "effects of polls, Durga Puja, Diwali may be seen in coming weeks. We have to keep watching new cases very carefully." Strictly following all the precautionary measures like not visiting crowded places, taking extra care of vulnerable sections of society and maintaining "2-feet" distance are still very important. "Don't be hesitant to get yourself tested" in case of symptoms, the Health ministry Secretary said.

The ministry also added that the country's deaths per million population is amongst the lowest in the world and stands at 94 deaths per million population.

Speaking during the briefing, the Centre also indicated a rise in social interaction amid the pandemic.

Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan also highlighted the various measures to tackle Delhi's COVID-19 surge in the past few days. Doubling Covid testing capacity to 1 to 1.2 lakh and increasing ICU beds to over 6,000 are among the decisions taken by the government to tackle the spike in infections in the national Capital, he said.

A decision has also been taken to increase house to house surveillance of active cases in containment zones and other vulnerable pockets for which 7,000-8,000 teams will be put on this exercise, a hike from the existing 3,000 teams that are currently involved, said NITI Aayog's V K Paul.

Paul further mentioned that at least five vaccines are under different phases of trial in India.

Meanwhile, the number of new Coronavirus infections reported in a day dropped below 30,000 after four months, taking India's caseload to 88.74 lakh, according to the Union Health Ministry data on Tuesday.

India's daily Coronavirus cases tally continued to dip further as only 29,164 new infections were reported in the last 24 hours.

The total recoveries have surged to 82,90,370 pushing the national recovery rate to 93.42 per cent, while the COVID-19 case fatality rate stands at 1.47 per cent.

Twenty personnel of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) who returned from Bihar election duty a week ago, have tested positive in Rudrapur area of US Nagar of the state. They have been admitted to a Covid Care Hospital in Rudrapur, officials said.

"A company of our battalion was sent to Bihar for election duty in October. When the personnel returned from duty, their samples were collected and sent for COVID-19 testing. Twenty police personnel out of 100 have tested Covid positive. They have been admitted in a Covid Care Centre in Rudrapur," Dadan Pal, commandant 31st battalion of PAC in Rudrapur, said.