Speaking to Avinash Prbhakar, ICMR additional director general Samiran Panda said the surge has been observed at district levels, hence it cannot be said that the country is moving towards a fourth wave.
The current spike in the number of daily Covid-19 cases in India cannot be termed as the fourth wave of the pandemic, Samiran Panda, Additional Director General of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), told IANS on Sunday.
Speaking exclusively to IANS, Panda said the surge has been observed at district levels, hence it cannot be said that the country is moving towards a fourth wave.
“Some surges have been observed at district levels. This is a called a blip… Blips are confined to certain geographical regions of the country,” he said.
While arguing why this is not the indication of a fourth wave, Panda gave four reasons in favour of the statement.
He said that first of all, the surge has been found at some local levels which is due to the testing ratio.
“Secondly, what we see is just a blip and we cannot say that entire states are under the grip of Covid.”
Thirdly, there is no increase in the hospital admission across the country, he noted.
And most importantly, according to Panda, no new variant has been found yet which indicates that there is no fourth wave right now.
While talking about the positivity rate, he said that sometimes the rate goes up because of low testing.
India on Sunday reported 3,324 fresh Covid-19 cases, a marginal decline against the 3,688 infections registered the previous day, the Union Health Ministry said.
In the same period, the country also reported 40 Covid fatalities, taking the nationwide death toll to 5,23,843.
Meanwhile, the active caseload stood at 19,092 cases, accounting for 0.04 per cent of the country’s total positive cases.
The recovery of 2,876 patients in the last 24 hours took the cumulative tally to 4,25,36,253. Consequently, India’s recovery rate stands at 98.74 per cent.
Also in the same period, a total of 4,71,087 tests were conducted across the country, increasing the overall to 83.79 crore.
While, the weekly positivity rate stood at 0.68 per cent, the daily positivity rate reported a marginal rise of 0.71 per cent.
As of Sunday morning, India’s Covid-19 vaccination coverage exceeded 189.17 crore, achieved via 2,33,70,193 sessions.
Over 2.90 crore adolescents have been administered with a first dose of Covid-19 jab since the beginning of vaccination drive for this age bracket.
12-14 vaccination
Over 60 per cent of India’s youngsters between the age of 12 to 14 have been administered with the first Covid vaccine dose.
Since the beginning of the vaccination drive for this age group, over 2.86 crore adolescents have been administered the first dose of Covid vaccine, as per the Health Ministry report on Saturday.
A total of 65,99,218 second dose of vaccines have been administered to the individuals in this age bracket so far.
Congratulating the youngsters on this occasion, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya tweeted: “Over 60 per cent of youngsters between the 12 to 14 age group have received the 1st dose of Covid vaccine. Congratulations to all my young friends who got vaccinated. We all are proud of you. Let’s continue this momentum!”
Covid-19 vaccination drive for the age group of 12-14 years was started on March 16. Similarly, the Covid-19 precaution dose administration for age group of 18-59 years also started from April 10.
In the age group of 15-18 years, 5,84,25,991 first doses of the vaccine have been administered, and 4,22,40,428 second doses, as per the provisional report till 7 a.m. on Saturday.
ALSO READ: Global Covid caseload tops 513.8 mn
