Daily COVID-19 cases in India have been declining over the past few weeks – down from over 840 on December 31 to just 269 on Tuesday, and the number of active cases is now only 2,556, the government said Wednesday, adding that three deaths were reported in the previous 24 hours.
The number of new cases reported daily had fallen to below 100 till early December but this spiked in the following days and weeks, fuelled by the emergence of a new variant – JN.1 – and the onset of winter. The combination led to a surge in overall actives cases – from around 2,800 to over 4,500.
Fortunately, a majority of the new cases were only mild infections. In fact, sources said 90 per cent did not need a hospital visit and, among the 10 per cent who did, only 1.1 per cent were put in ICUs, only 0.5 per cent needed oxygen support, and only 0.3 per cent were on ventilators to help breathe.
