Covid-19: No new deaths in 15 states and UTs; less than 5 in another 18 in the last 24 hours

Addressing a press briefing, he said India was the fastest country to reach 6 million vaccination doses of Covid-19 in 24 days

No new Covid-19 deaths were reported in the past 24 hours in 15 states and Union Territories, whereas in another 18 states and UTs, the death count was less than five, the Union Health Ministry said here on Tuesday, releasing fresh data on the shrinking epidemic.

For two consecutive weeks, the case fatality ratio has stayed below 1%, which was the original target for the government when it was battling the rising epidemic. There has been a 55% decline in average daily deaths in the past five weeks.

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While Jharkhand, Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir are the only big and populous states and UTs on the first list of 15, almost all major states barring Kerala, Maharashtra and Punjab, fall into the second group of 18. Karnataka, for instance, has three deaths since Monday.

Out of 78 deaths recorded in the past 24 hours, Kerala (16), Maharashtra (15) and Punjab (11) account for 42 deaths.

Thirty-three out of 36 States and UTs have less than 5,000 active cases. The three exceptions are Kerala (65,670), Maharashtra (35,991) and Karnataka (5,953). Taken together they account for 75% of the active cases.

“In the case of Maharashtra, there is a steady decline from January to February, but in Kerala, the number of cases increased,” Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said.

The Union Health Secretary also asked the states to administer the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine to healthcare workers by February 20 and hold a mop-up round by February 24. Similarly, the cut-off date for the frontline workers to complete the exercise is March 6. Those who miss out would be relegated to the third category of the 27 crore general population.

So far, more than six million Indians – mostly healthcare workers - have received the vaccine. “We accelerate towards the third group of 26 crore people, who would mostly be individuals above 50 years. Both vaccines have been proven safe as there is only one adverse effect (mostly minor) for every 1,400 cases,” said V K Paul, NITI Ayog member.

Bhushan said a national-level panel on AEFI (adverse event following immunisation) met for the first time on February 5 to discuss five post-vaccination deaths.

The panel deduced that two of the five deaths were not linked to the vaccine whereas for the remaining, the committee sought histopathology and chemical analysis reports from the states. There have been 23 such deaths so far.