More than 74 per cent of the Active COVID Cases of the country are in Kerala and Maharashtra, a release issued yesterday by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare informed.

Of late it is seen that there has been a spike in the daily cases in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh also, the release informed, adding that Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir too are witnessing a surge in daily new cases.

In the last four weeks in Kerala, the average weekly cases have fluctuated between a high of 42,000 to a low of 34,800. In Kerala, the district of Alappuzha is a cause of special concern where the weekly Positivity Rate has increased to 10.7 per cent and weekly cases have increased to 2,833.

In Maharashtra, in the last four weeks, the weekly cases have shown a rising trend and have increased from 18,200 to 21,300; while the weekly positivity has also increased from 4.7 per cent to 8 per cent. The areas of concern are the Mumbai Suburban areas where the weekly cases have risen by 19 per cent. In Nagpur, Amravati, Nashik, Akola and Yavatmal the weekly cases have increased by 33 per cent, 47 per cent, 23 per cent, 55 per cent and 48 per cent, respectively.

5 States/UTs have weekly Positivity Rate more than the National Average. The National average is 1.79 per cent. Maharashtra has the highest weekly positivity rate with 8.10 per cent.

The Centre has advised all these States to work on five major areas. These are:

1. Improve the overall testing numbers by focusing on increasing the proportion of RT-PCR tests.
2. All negative Rapid Antigen Test results to be mandatorily followed by RT-PCR test and no such negative persons are to be missed.
3. Refocus on strict and comprehensive surveillance as well as stringent containment in selected districts.
4. Regular monitoring of the mutant strains through testing followed by Genome Sequencing, as well as monitoring of the emerging cluster of cases.
5. Focusing on clinical management in districts reporting higher deaths.

Twenty two States/UTs have not reported any COVID19 deaths in the last 24 hours. These are Gujarat, Odisha, J&K(UT), Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Goa, Jharkhand, Puducherry, Assam, Meghalaya, Lakshadweep, Manipur, Mizoram, Sikkim, Ladakh (UT), Nagaland, A&N Islands, Tripura, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, D&D and D&N.