India's Covid weekly roundup: Tally falls below 50,000; lowest daily increase since the second wave

The number of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases in India has been steadily decreasing. Despite the fact that the new Omicron type has alarmed health professionals and the government, the daily tally has been progressively declining.

And it's the first time in over a year and a half that India's weekly count of Covid-19 cases has fallen below 50,000.

India registered 49,765 cases in the week ending December 19, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). This is down 7,490 people, or 13.08 percent, from the previous week's total.

India had 57,255 cases in the week of December 6-12, according to WHO data, although the number reduced to 49,765 in the week of December 13-19. On December 16, the highest number of cases (7,974) was recorded; in the previous week, the maximum count of 9,419 cases was registered on December 9.

Another sigh of relief came this week, when India registered 5,784 cases, the lowest single-day increase since the second wave, according to WHO.

Prior to this, the country had only 48,858 cases in 2020 (the week of May 25-31), when the number was fewer than 50,000.

Kerala, which has seen a surge in the number of cases in recent weeks, is a big contributor to India's daily caseload. The spread of infection, on the other hand, is slowing in the southern state, while the numbers remain a source of concern for the central administration.

The new severely mutated Omicron variation has reignited fears of a larger outbreak than the Delta strain, which was responsible for Covid-19's devastating second wave earlier this year.

While the first case of Omicron was discovered in South Africa on November 24, India's first two instances of this fast-spreading variant of the coronavirus were discovered on December 2 in Karnataka.

After 7,081 new instances were recorded on Sunday, India's Covid-19 tally reached 3,47,40,275. According to the Union health ministry, active cases have dropped to 83,913, the lowest level in 570 days.

For the past 52 days, the daily increase in new coronavirus infections has been below 15,000 per day.

The daily positive rate was 0.58 percent on average. For the past 76 days, it has been less than 2%.