Coronavirus in India: Why India's COVID-19 numbers are falling

The number of new COVID-19 positive cases in India fell to 61,267 for the first time since August on Tuesday, raising hopes that this will lead to speeding economic recovery, an Axis Bank Business and Economic Research has said.

The report said the COVID-19 cases in Maharashtra in particular reduced to just over 10,000, and hoped that this down trend sustains, allowing a sorely needed return of confidence. "This will also be an important decision component in the deliberations of the new MPC starting tomorrow," the report said.

Axis Bank said one of the causes attributed to the falling fresh positive cases is a natural fall in testing rates. Another reason is that the share of the Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) vs the 'gold standard' PCR test has been rising. RAT detects presence or absence of coronavirus antigen in the body of a patient in 30 minutes.

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Exhibiting the latest COVID-19 trends, the report says COVID-19 cases in India started declining in the week 4 of September, with the contributions of  major infection states.

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It said the drop in new daily cases since mid-September was coterminous with  increased testings across the country.

In the period from end-August to mid September, even as the share of PCR tests in the total dropped from 49 per cent to 40 per cent, the test positivity rate actually rose. However, in the second half of September, the co-movement was slightly more ambiguous, the report said.

Finally, the spread of infections to smaller towns and villages over August and September seems to have stabilised mid-September and then slightly reversed. "This has raised hopes that the need for erratic lockdowns in districts might be reducing, providing greater certainty in the production and logistics planning process, hence likely speeding economic recovery," the reports adds.

As per the health ministry, India reported a spike of 61,267 new COVID-19 cases and 884 deaths in the last 24 hours. Total case tally stands at 66,85,083, including 9,19,023 active cases, 56,62,491 recoveries cases and 1,03,569 deaths. India's recovery rate has improved to 84.7 per cent, while the mortality rate stands at 1.55 per cent, which is among lowest nations in the world.

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