The constant spike in COVID-19 infections in India can be attributed to increased testing and opening of economy, as well as complacency of people while following the pandemic-related rules, reported news agency PTI quoting experts.
The country registered over five lakh cases over the past week, as it recorded the highest single-day spike of 78,761 infections on Saturday, according to Union Health Ministry. The tally stands at 3,542,733 as of Sunday. The country has been registering over 70,000 cases for the last four days.
Read: Odisha’s COVID-19 tally breaches one lakh-mark
Samiran Panda, Head of Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), told PTI that this increase in the number of infections was expected. However, he also pointed out that the phenomenon is not homogeneous across the states.
“It is happening in some pockets and among groups where there is an intermixing of the susceptible population and asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic cases, which is leading to a transmission of the disease. So, efforts have to be made to interrupt this transmission in these pockets,” Panda told PTI.
Meanwhile, testing has also been exponentially ramped up, which is why more cases are being detected, Panda added.
“Further, with the opening up of the economy and people’s movement increasing, some complacency is being seen among people towards following COVID-appropriate behaviour. It is also contributing to the rise in cases,” Panda said as he stressed on the need for a sustained COVID-19 appropriate behaviour.
Leading virologist Shahid Jameel told PTI that people are not following advisories on wearing masks, hand hygiene and social distancing.
Read: India records world’s highest single-day rise with 78,761 new coronavirus cases
“This is driven by a complacency that results from the official narrative, which only talks of increasing recovery and low death rate. The fact is that we are producing the largest daily numbers. We are now third in total infections and going to be on the third spot on total deaths as well,” he said.
Experts underlined that the way forward is for the people to follow COVID-appropriate behaviour, which includes wearing a mask, maintaining social distancing, hand hygiene and respiratory etiquette in a sustained manner while the government should focus on preventing deaths. Dr KK Aggarwal, president of the Confederation of Medical Association of Asia and Oceania (CMAAO) and former IMA chief, said, “There is no way the number of cases can be checked by government efforts at this stage.” He stressed that prevention will have to be at an individual level now.
“If this current trend continues, nobody can stop India from crossing Brazil and America (in the number of cases). That would happen in probably six weeks. There is no way we can check the number of cases by government efforts. Now, prevention will have to be an individual effort.
Read: Global coronavirus cases surpass 25 million
“Opening up (of the economy) will lead to a surge in cases. The locking period was to prepare and sensitise people about how to prevent themselves from getting infected. What is more important now is to put a check on mortality. So government efforts should focus on mortality reduction,” Aggarwal said.
India so has recorded 63,498 fatalities linked to COVID-19 with 948 people succumbing to the disease in the last 24 hours, according to the Union health ministry data.
According to sources in the government, a record 10.5 lakh tests were conducted for detection of COVID-19 on Saturday, which took India’s cumulative tests to 4,14,61,636. India’s COVID-19 positivity rate as on date in 7.50 per cent.
The health ministry had on Saturday said, “The global comparison depicted that India has one of the lowest cases per million (2,424) and deaths per million (44) compared to the global average of 3,161 and 107.2, respectively.”
