Even as the country is gearing up to deal with the impending third wave, there is a considerable fall in the 7-day moving average of the number of cases over the last three weeks with the latest being 38,197 — lower than the earlier two weeks’ average cases of 41,684 and 44,047 respectively.

However, Kerala and Maharashtra remain areas of concern as they are still recording the highest number of cases. Kerala crossed the 16,000-mark on Sunday at 16,148. Both these States are continuing to report more than 100 daily deaths due to Covid-19. In addition, the Northeastern region is also showing continuous spike in active cases. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had interacted with the State heads of this region last week to address the issue.

India reported 41,157 Covid cases on Sunday. with 518 deaths in the last 24 hours till 8:00 AM. Among all the States/UTs, Kerala reported the highest Coronavirus infections, followed by Maharashtra at 8,172. Cumulatively, India reported 3,11,06,065 cases of which the total active caseload was 4,22,660, those who recovered were 3,02,69,796 and the death toll was 4,13,609. The recovery rate increased to 97.31 per cent with 42,004 patients recovering during last 24 hours till 8:00 AM.

Spike in cases

It is to be noted that a spike in active cases was seen in the States of Arunachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Kerala, Nagaland and Odisha on Sunday. Only two States, Maharashtra and Kerala, reported more than 100 casualties at 124 and 114 respectively.

In addition, the weekly positivity rate remained below 5 per cent, currently at 2.08 per cent and the daily positivity rate stood at 2.13 per cent — less than 3 per cent for 27 consecutive days.

Meanwhile, India conducted 19,36,709 tests during the previous day and the total tests conducted have substantially risen to 44.39 crore so far. The country administered 40.60 crore vaccine doses so far with 11,81,749 shots given in the last 24 hours till 6:00 PM, as per the data.