For the first time in more than 23 months, the number of active cases of the coronavirus disease in India has dropped to under 15,000 – a remarkable statistic for a country with a population the size of India.
With 14,704 active infections across India as of Wednesday morning, according to the Union health ministry, India’s burden of those currently infected with Covid-19 is at the lowest since April 21, 2020 – a time when the first wave of the pandemic was just beginning in the country.
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Active cases – those Covid-19 patients still carrying the virus, and thus under treatment at the time – is a crucial metric representing a region’s battle against the coronavirus disease because it directly reflects the pressure on the health care system at any given point of time. A look at how India’s prolonged fight to contain Covid-19 is reflected in this number.
The remarkable reduction in active cases in the country has been achieved on the heels of the contraction of India’s third wave of the outbreak, which was caused by the highly-transmissible, but significantly less lethal Omicron variant of Sars-Cov-2.
As of Wednesday morning, there are 14,704 active Covid-19 cases in India. The last time there were fewer active cases in the country was 707 days ago on April 21, 2020. But, at that time, the country’s first wave was only kicking off. This time, however, cases are declining.
The volume of active cases during others waves also provides context to how much things have improved. At its worst, there were more than 3.75 million active cases in the country on May 9, 2021 – the peak of India’s second wave. During the worst of the third wave, this soared to a peak of 2.3 million active case on January 23, 2022.
Most importantly, active infections have been declining rapidly since the January 23 peak of the third wave – a reduction of 99.4%.
After seeing off the third wave of Covid-19 infections in January, India currently is going through perhaps the easiest phase of pandemic since the absolute start of the outbreak in the country in 2020. In the week leading to Wednesday, there were 1,629 new cases reported across the country every day on average. This is the lowest this number has been in more than 22 months – the last time the nation seven-day average was lower was on April 28, 2020, or 698 days ago, according to data compiled by HT.
