This constitutes an overall recovery rate of 97.22 per cent, which is showing a sustained increasing trend, reports Asian Lite News
India reported 37,154 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, informed the Union Health Ministry on Monday.
India’s active caseload of Covid-19 cases is at 4,50,899. The active cases constitute 1.46 per cent of the total cases.
The country also reported 724 deaths due to Covid-19 and with that, the cumulative fatalities in the country due to viral infection reached 4,08,764.
Out of the people infected since the beginning of the pandemic, 3,00,14,713 patients have already recovered from Covid-19 and 39,649 recovered in the last 24 hours.
This constitutes an overall recovery rate of 97.22 percent, which is showing a sustained increasing trend.
The weekly positivity rate also remained below 5 percent and is currently at 2.32 percent. Further, the daily positivity rate is at 2.59 percent, less than 3 percent for 21 consecutive days.
The testing capacity in the country has been substantially ramped up with 43.23 crore tests conducted so far.
India commenced its Covid-19 vaccination drive on January 16 this year. Till date, 37,73,52,501 vaccine doses have been administered so far including 12,35,287 in the last 24 hours, under the nationwide vaccination drive.
Zydus’ Covid vaccine for kids above 12 to come up for nod
Zydus Cadila’s Covid-19 vaccine developed for children above 12 years is likely to get emergency use approval from drug regulator Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) in the next few days, sources have said. The vaccine has been tested on adults as well as children above 12 years of age and if the regulatory committee is satisfied with the data, it may be given approval for emergency use, officials said.
The regulator’s subject expert committee (SEC) will examine data submitted by Cadila. Officials said that if the approval is given, supply of the vaccine is expected to start by August-September. “The preliminary assessment of the application submitted by the company is going on and we have sent it to the SEC for further consideration. The SEC will be meeting in the coming week, representatives of the company will be also asked to make presentations,” an official said.
Earlier Dr NK Arora, Chairperson of the Covid-19 Working Group of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (NTAGI), reportedly said that the Zydus Cadila’s vaccine for the age group of 12-18 years is expected to be available by September end. In an interview to NDTV, Dr Arora had said that Zydus Cadila’s data for 12-18 year-olds will be available by next month or early September and that we will certainly be able to give it.
ZyCov-D is a three-dose, intradermal vaccine which is applied using the PharmaJet needle-free system, the report added. It can be stored at 2-8 degree Celsius but has shown good stability at temperatures of 25 degree Celsius for at least 3 months. Apart from Cadila, Bharat Biotech is also testing Covaxin on children.
Third wave knocking?
After facing a severe second wave of coronavirus pandemic between February and May, there has been a sharp decline in India’s daily cases in the last several weeks. However, the recent trajectory of Covid-19 cases has shown some worrying signs.
As per the data shared by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), there has been been a slowdown in the downward trend of daily COVID infections and a slight increase in the positivity rate. This is worrisome as there has been an influx of people at tourist destinations with less or no Covid-appropriate behaviour seen from them.
The Central government has expressed grave concerns over crowds thronging markets and hill stations over the past few days. It has now warned of reimposing lockdown-like restrictions in places where people are found to be blatantly breaking the rules put in place to contain coronavirus outbreaks.
Kerala’s positivity rate alarming
The state has been reporting around one-third of the overall daily Covid-19 infections being reported in the country for the past several days. As many as 13,772 fresh Covid cases were reported yesterday, pushing the total cases to 30.25 lakh in the southern state.
The active cases in Kerala have touched 1,10,136. With the new infections, the positivity rate has also surged to over 10 per cent.
Meanwhile, Prime Narendra Modi expressed concern about the persistently high number of Covid cases from Maharashtra and Kerala, according to the sources.
‘Covid third wave to hit India in August’
A research report has predicted that India may witness the third wave of Covid-19 in mid-August 2021, raising the alarm bells for policymakers and citizens.
The report, Covid-19: The race to finishing line, prepared by SBI Research, claims that the Covidthird wave peak will arrive in the month of September 2021.
According to the SBI report, the global data shows that on average, peak Covid-19 cases reached during the third wave are nearly twice or 1.7 times those from the second wave of the pandemic.
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