Even as the Health Ministry on Thursday said the overall Covid-19 situation in the country was very optimistic, it cautioned the people against lowering their guard as some states including Kerala, Mizoram and Himachal Pradesh are still reporting a large number of infections. Addressing a briefing, Union Health Ministry Joint Secretary Luv Aggarwal said four states — Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka — have more than 50,000 active cases of Covid-19, while 11 states have active cases between 10,000 and 50,000. Further stating that the the rate of infection spread has come down significantly, Aggarwal said the daily positivity rate of 20.75 per cent recorded on January 24 has now decreased to 4.44 per cent.
India reported 67,084 new Covid-19 cases and 1,241 related deaths in the last 24 hours ending 8 am, Thursday. The active caseload in the country dipped to 7,90,789, from Wednesday’s 8.92 lakh. The daily positivity rate also saw a slight decrease from 4.54% to 4.44% on Thursday.
Issuing new guidelines for international travellers, the Ministry of Health Thursday scrapped the mandatory seven-day home quarantine. The new guidelines, which come into effect from February 14, require passengers to self-monitor their health for 14 days after arrival and isolate in case they develop symptoms of Covid-19. All passengers will undergo thermal screening on arrival and be isolated at a medical facility if found symptomatic. If they test positive, their contacts will be identified as per protocol. The ‘at-risk’ tag for countries has also been removed. Moreover, passengers from 82 countries are allowed to upload a certificate of full vaccination instead of a negative RT-PCR report obtained 72 hours prior to boarding. These countries include those which have an agreement with India on mutual recognition of vaccination certificates of nationally recognised or WHO recognised vaccines or those which provide quarantine-free entry to Indians.