Addressing a press conference, Dr. VK Paul also said that though there has been an overall decline in the number of cases and the COVID graph is stabilizing, the positivity rate is still over 10 percent in 382 districts.
In what could be a possible shedding of vaccine hesitancy, NITI Aayog member (Health) Dr. V K Paul on Saturday said that the wastage of Covaxin wastage decreased from 17 percent to 4 percent, while for the Covishield vaccine, the wastage has reduced from 8 percent on March 1 to 1 percent.
Addressing a press conference, Dr. Paul also said that though there has been an overall decline in the number of cases and the COVID graph is stabilizing, the positivity rate is still over 10 percent in 382 districts.
“In large parts of the country, the pandemic is stabilizing, the positivity rate and active cases are reducing and recovery rate is rising. It is also being seen that an increase is being seen in other states so this is a mixed picture but overall there has been a decrease in case burden but we have a long way to go to handle this wave and we also have to ensure that there should be no laxity in the steps we take,” he said.
“As the situation improves we need to keep ensuring that the chain of transmission remains broken. In 382 districts, the positivity rate is over 10 percent so there is still a long way to go to battle this particular wave,” he added.
Eight states have more than 1 lakh active cases while 18 states have over 15 percent positivity rate, joint secretary in the health ministry Lav Agarwal said during the briefing.
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Paul also said that children can spread the coronavirus but they almost always have a mild infection and low mortality rate.
On the virus prevalence among children, Paul said seropositivity rate between 10-17 years is roughly the same as between 30-40 and children can also be potential spreaders.
“Whenever children contracted the infection then almost always symptoms are minimal, very mild disease or they are asymptomatic and because it is mild the mortality is very very less in them,” he said.
With the fresh cases, India’s tally of COVID-19 cases climbed to 2,65,44,367. The death toll due to the disease rose to 2,99,367 with 3741 fresh fatalities, the data updated at 8 am showed. The active cases further reduced to 28,05,399.
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