The COVID-19 pandemic in India is showing a declining trend, except for two to three states, the government said on Tuesday, noting that it is “particularly noteworthy” vis-à-vis some countries in the northern hemisphere where a severe increase in the intensity of the virus’ spread is being seen.

The situation related to the pandemic in the world is particularly concerning and it has been seen that countries of much greater economic capability and per capita income, and having a good health system can succumb to a huge second peak, chairperson of the National Task Force on COVID-19, VK Paul, told a press conference.

Meanwhile, India has conducted more than 10 Crore COVID-19 tests and the recovery rate is more than 90%. India's recovered COVID cases are the highest in the world said Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Shri Rajesh Bhushan . The media briefing on the actions taken, preparedness and updates on COVID-19, was held at National Media Centre, New Delhi yesterday.

He also informed that India's number of cases per million population as well as deaths per million population are amongst the lowest in the world. "It took us 57 days to register a recovery of 10 lakhs from 1 lakh whereas, the latest 10 lakh recoveries have been achieved in just 13 days which is also a satisfactory sign," said Shri Bhushan.

While talking about the continuous declining trend in case fatality rate, he mentioned that "it has declined from 1.77% on 1st September to 1.50% today, 27th October. It should be specifically noted that many States and Union Territories have a case fatality rate below the national average of 1.50%. There has also been a decline in average daily new deaths: from 1054 in September to 615 now."

India also witnesses a continuous decline in average daily new COVID cases, which has come down from 83,232 during 23- 29 Sep to 49,909 between 21-27 October. "When we observe the number of new COVID cases reported in the last 24 hours, it is only 36,470. However, the number of COVID tests conducted during this period has never come down. If even after doing an average of 11 lakh tests per day, there is a decline in daily new cases it is surely a very positive sign. Our number of tests per million population is more than 75,600”, he pointed out.