The Union Government has written a letter to five states– Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Telangana, and Tamil Nadu to closely monitor emerging clusters of COVID-19 cases and maintain an adequate number of tests, and send samples from infected individuals for genome sequencing.

“There are few states which are reporting a higher contribution to India’s cases indicating the possibility of a localised spread of infection. There is, therefore, a need to follow a risk assessment based approach to the public health responses without losing the gains made so far in the fight against the pandemic,” read the letter written by Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan to the officials of these five states.

The state is advised to follow a five-fold strategy that is test – track – treat – vaccination and should also follow COVID-19 appropriate behaviour, monitoring clusters of new COVID-19 cases, and adequate testing as per guidelines.

The Union Health Secretary pointed out that a sustained and significant decline in the number of COVID-19 cases has been observed in India over the past three months.

He said, in the past one week, a slight upsurge in cases is being noticed as 15,708 cases were reported in the week ending 27th May which has gone up to 21,055 cases till June 3. There is also a rise in weekly positivity from 0.52 percent to 0.73 percent during the week, Bhushan added.

Meanwhile, India on Saturday reported a marginal decline of 3,962 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, against the 4,041 infections registered the previous day, the Union Health Ministry said.

In the same period, the country reported 26 new Covid fatalities, taking the nationwide death toll to 5,24,677.

The active caseload of the country also increased to 22,416 cases, accounting for 0.05 percent of the country’s total positive cases.

The recovery of 2,697 patients in the last 24 hours took the cumulative tally to 4,26,25,454. Consequently, India’s recovery rate stands at 98.73 percent.

While the daily positivity rate slightly dropped to 0.89 percent, the weekly positivity rate stood at 0.77 percent.

Also in the same period, a total of 4,45,814 tests were conducted across the country, increasing the overall tally to over 85.22 crores.

As of Saturday morning, India’s COVID-19 vaccination coverage exceeded 193.96 crores, achieved via 2,47,05,065 sessions.

Over 3.43 crore adolescents have been administered a first dose of COVID-19 jab since the beginning of the vaccination drive for this age bracket.