Omicron-driven third wave of Covid-19 continued to fall sharply in India for the fourth week running and deaths from the virus reduced in the week ending Sunday to nearly half the number reported in the previous seven days. Cases were down 56% from last week’s tally of just over 173,000 new cases in the current week, down 56% from the preceding week’s tally of 394,000. That week (February 7-13) had witnessed a 59% dip in cases, the sharpest weekly decrease since the beginning of the pandemic.
Weekly cases are now the lowest since the first week of the current wave - December 27-January 2, when nearly 130,000 infections were logged in the country. So far, this appears to be the shortest wave of the pandemic in the country by a long margin. In just four weeks, recorded infections have declined to just 8% of the third wave peak of 21,70,000, recorded in January 17-23. A corresponding decline from the peak took around 15 weeks during the deadly second wave in India.
Weekly deaths from the virus have reduced by 57% since the peak of 4,355 recorded in January 31-February 6. If fatalities from earlier months added to the toll during this period are included, there were 3,277 fatalities reported in the current week, down 47% from the previous week’s toll of 6,149. Meanwhile, 16,820 fresh were reported on Sunday, the lowest daily tally since December 30, when 16,717 infections are logged. There were 155 fresh deaths recorded on the day, the fewest since January 10.
Schools, colleges reopen in Ahmedabad
Schools and colleges, which were operating in hybrid mode for the past two years, switched completely to offline classes on Monday. The attendance in schools was over 70%, and attendance in colleges was also quite high. Officials said that 95,45,000 students are registered in the state. The attendance of 54,72,000 students have been recorded. Officials expect this figure to rise as many schools are yet to update attendance.
There are 32,054 state-run schools and of these 31,503 have updated their attendance. The officials said that in government primary schools, the attendance was 64.77% which was much lower than private schools. Of 13,979 private schools, 9,268 schools updated their attendance. The officials said that of 40,24,000 students in these schools, 25,83,000 were marked present.
