India eases curbs as Covid monster retreats

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With the Covid-19 case count in India recording a steady fall over the last four months, the Government has further eased some of the restrictions that were put in place to fight the pandemic.</p>
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The Centre has allowed the states to raise the number of people that can be permitted at social and religious gatherings and lifted the 50% occupancy limit for cinema halls. Swimming pools can also be allowed to open in the country.</p>
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The number of fresh Covid-19 cases reported nationwide in the last 24 hours slowed to 11,666 of which 50% were from Kerala. As many as 14,301 people were discharged from hospital bringing down the overall count. The death toll for the day was put at 123, as per the health minstry.</p>
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Maharashtra the only other state with a high daily count of Covid cases in the country accounted for 20% of the cases. So far 153 cases of UK variant have been detected in India.</p>
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The number of new coronavirus cases in New Delhi  has now come down to a 10-month low of 96.</p>
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The total number of active cases in India now stands at 173,740. The total number of cases since the outbreak of the pandemic in the country is at 10.37 million over 96% per cent of these have been cured. The total death toll in India in the pandemic now stands at 1.54 lakh which works out to 1.44% of the total number of people who were infected by coronavirus.  </p>
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<strong>Global Covid-19 picture</strong></p>
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The total number of global coronavirus cases has topped 100.7 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 2.17 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University.The US is the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 25,588,419 and 428,862, respectively, according to the CSSE.New Zealand, Vietnam and Taiwan rank the top three in a Covid Performance Index of almost 100 countries for their successful handling of coronavirus pandemic with Britain and America figuring near the bottom of the heap, according to research published by a leading Australian think tank on Thursday.</p>
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Brazil's handling of the coronavirus pandemic has been ranked the world's worst. Thailand, Australia, and Sri Lanka made the top 10 for their responses.</p>