1.8% of India’s population hit by COVID, 98% still vulnerable: Centre

The Union Health Ministry on Tuesday said that only 1.8% of the total population of India has been affected by COVID-19 so far. The remaining population is unaffected but still vulnerable to the deadly infection, it said.

“We have been able to contain the spread of the infection to under 2% of the population,” the ministry said.

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Addressing a press conference, Health Ministry’s Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal said that a 27% drop in cases has been recorded since the second COVID wave peaked in India on May 7.

“199 districts in the country showing a continued decline in cases and positivity since last 3 weeks,” Agarwal added.

India reported over 263,000 daily cases in the last 24 hours. On May 7, the country recorded 414,000 cases of coronavirus.

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The total number of deaths recorded during the last 24 hours in India stands currently at 4,329, up from 4,106 deaths on the previous day.

Out of India’s total population of close to 1.4 billion people, a total of 184,453,149 citizens have received at least the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, as per data issued by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Tuesday.