India reports more than 3,000 Covid-19 cases after nearly six months

India has reported more than 3,000 fresh Covid-19 cases after nearly six months, signalling what may be the beginning of yet another rise in the infection level even though hospitalisation levels remain low.

Within 10 days, the number of new Covid-19 cases rose from 699 on March 20 to 3,016 on March 29 with 41 districts in 16 states reporting a weekly positivity of 10 per cent and above, while another 71 districts showed a weekly positivity between 5-10 per cent. The silver line is that very few patients require hospital stay.

Since the official count includes new cases in the past 24 hours, the official update on Thursday means more than 3,000 fresh Covid-19 cases were reported across the country on Wednesday. The count may go up further with more tests as the government beef up the surveillance.

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After a high-level review meeting earlier this week, Union Health Ministry officials said the weekly positivity in Maharashtra went up to 4.58 per cent as on March 24 from 0.54 per cent in the week ending March 3. Similarly in Gujarat, it has increased to 2.17 per cent from 0.07 per cent and in Kerala, the weekly positivity shot up to 4.51 per cent from 1.47 per cent.

The western state that was the epicentre of the two of three major pandemic waves in India in the last three years reported 694 Covid cases on Thursday - 63 per cent jump from 483 cases on Wednesday. Delhi reported 300 new Covid cases, following which a high-level review was carried out.

Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan asked the states to look for clusters and increase the screening, particularly among those showing influenza-like illness and symptoms of severe acute respiratory illness.

The Centre also advised carrying out mock drills across all health facilities on April 10 and 11, to ensure operational readiness of hospital infrastructure, including oxygen cylinders, oxygen generation plants, ventilators, logistics and human resources to deal with any contingency. The last such drill was conducted in December involving nearly 22,000 facilities.

Among other states, Karnataka witnessed average weekly positivity rise to 3.05 per cent from 1.65 per cent, while Delhi has seen weekly positivity rise to 4.25 per cent from 0.53 per cent. Similarly, Himachal Pradesh witnessed weekly positivity increase to 7.48 per cent from 1.92 per cent. In Rajasthan, it has increased from 0.12 per cent to 1.62 per cent, and Tamil Nadu reported an increase in weekly positivity from 0.46 per cent to 2.40 per cent in the same period.