Daily count stays below 15,000, Kerala reports 6.7k new cases

NEW DELHI: India reported fewer than 15,000 fresh Covid-19 cases for the second day running as the pandemic continued to recede in almost all states of the country, with the exception of Kerala. There were 14,413 cases of the coronavirus detected in India on Friday, almost the same count as 14,617 on the previous day. The day’s death toll from the virus was 157.
Only once has the daily case tally crossed 15,000 so far this week — Wednesday, when more than 15,200 infections had been recorded. The daily count was above 15,000 on five days last week, pointing to the continuing drop in infection numbers. The pandemic, however, rages on in Kerala. The state recorded 6,753 new Covid-19 cases, nearly 47% of the national count. This was the fourth consecutive day of 6,000-plus fresh cases in the state, a discernible rise as compared to the numbers reported last week.
Maharashtra reported 2,779 new cases, the count staying below 3,000 for the second straight day. As in the past few days, no other state apart from Kerala and Maharashtra reported fresh cases in four figures. Tamil Nadu had the third highest number at 574. All other states recorded fewer than 500 cases, with Gujarat at 451, Chhattisgarh 440 and Bengal 406. The daily numbers dropped sharply in Karnataka, which reported 324 new cases as opposed to 674 on the previous day.
Maharashtra continued to report the highest deaths, with 50 fatalities on Friday. The next highest toll was 19 in Kerala, followed by 12 in Chhattisgarh and eight each in Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Bengal and Punjab.