More on Covid-19

NEW DELHI: The health ministry on Saturday said a positive trend was emerging in 23 states due to lockdown and containment measures against Covid-19 outbreak undertaken by the central and state governments.Around 47 districts from 23 states have reported no cases of Covid-19 in the last 14 days. Besides, 22 new districts from 12 states — which had earlier reported some districts with not even a single case for 14 days — have joined the list by not reporting any cases in 14 days led by Covid-19 containment efforts.The government, however, said the battle against the disease was a difficult one and a single case can play the spoilsport.“Our field-level action is yielding positive results. Along with Mahe in Puducherry , Kodagu in Karnataka, too, has not registered any new case in the last 28 days. Besides this, 45 other districts in 23 states have not registered any new case in the last 14 days,” health ministry joint secretary Lav Agarwal said.He added that three districts — Patna in Bihar, Panipat in Haryana and Nadia in West Bengal — which had earlier not shown any positive cases had registered new cases underlining that even a single case makes a significant difference while dealing with a highly contagious disease.Agarwal added that a total of 1,992 people have been cured of the disease so far, and the overall cure percentage stood at 13.8%. He said 991 new positive cases reported over the last 24 hours had taken the total number of infections to 14,378, including 48 new deaths, which raised the death toll to 480 in the country.