India saw a single-day rise of 66 coronavirus infections and active cases declined to 1,755 on Tuesday, three years after the first case was reported in Kerala and consequent waves of the pandemic left people scrambling for hospital beds and literally gasping for breath. Till now, the coronavirus disease has claimed 5,30,740 lives and infected 4.46 crore (4,46,82,785) people, according to Union health ministry. The waves in 2020 and 2021, particularly those fuelled by the Delta and the Omicron variants, wreaked havoc on the health system and people’s livelihoods and affected businesses. Dr Suranjit Chatterjee, a senior consultant at Apollo hospital in Delhi, and a Covid survivor, said that the situation has become much better now, compared to the bad phase the country saw in 2020 and the nightmare in 2021. “Cases have come down significantly in India, and its been three years since the first case was reported in the country in Kerala. People are relaxed right now, but influenza is still spreading very fast in India and in other countries. Thankfully, number of Covid cases is minimum,” he told PTI. On Tuesday, the ministry said the daily positivity rate has been recorded at 0.05 per cent while the weekly positivity stands at 0.07 per cent. The active cases now comprise 0.01 per cent of the total infections, while the national recovery rate has increased to 98.81 per cent, according to the health ministry’s website.