As India’s fresh Covid-19 cases have been declining for the fourth straight week, the Omicron-fueled rise in infections could have turned out to be the shortest wave of the pandemic in India by a long margin. Over the last two weeks, cases have reduced almost by half. The country reported just over 1.73 lakh new cases in the current week, down 56 percent from the preceding week’s tally of 3.94 lakh, as per a Times of India report. This was the steepest dip recorded since the start of the pandemic.

Covid deaths also reduced the week ending Sunday by half the number reported in the previous week. India recorded 1,898 deaths in the week, down 44% from the previous week’s toll of 3,366.

Weekly cases are now the lowest since the first week of the current wave — December 27-January 2, when nearly 1.3 lakh infections were logged in the country. In just four weeks, recorded infections have declined to just 8% of the third wave peak of 21.7 lakh, recorded in January 17-23, the Times of India report said. A similar decline from the peak took around 15 weeks during the deadly second wave in India.

Meanwhile, daily new Covid-19 cases in India fell below 20,000 after 51 days, taking the total virus tally to 4,28,22,473, while the active cases dipped to 2,24,187, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Sunday.

A total of 19,968 cases have been reported in a day while the death toll climbed to 5,11,903 with 673 fresh fatalities, the data updated at 8 am stated.

The daily Covid-19 cases have remained below one lakh for 14 consecutive days.

India reported 16,764 corornavirus infections on December 30 last year. The active cases comprise 0.52 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has further improved to 98.28 per cent, the ministry said.