India witnessed a slight drop in fresh coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases and a rise in daily deaths, recording 14,148 new infections and 302 fatalities on Thursday, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Daily Covid-19 cases have remained below one lakh for 18 consecutive days, data shows. The country’s active caseload currently stands at 1,48,359, comprising 0.35 per cent of total cases. With 30,009 patients recovering from Covid-19 since Wednesday, the recovery rate is now at 98.46 per cent. The daily positivity rate is now at 1.22 per cent, while the weekly positivity rate stands at 1.6 per cent, according to the health ministry. Cumulative vaccine doses administered cross 176.47 crore More than 176 crore vaccine doses have been administered so far as part of the nationwide vaccination drive, the health minister also said on Thursday. Over 26 lakh (26,88,373) vaccine doses have been administered till 7 pm on Wednesday. So far, over 1.94 crore—1,94,97,567 to exact—precaution doses were administered to healthcare workers, frontline workers and those aged 60 and above with comorbidities have been given, it said. Science amazing, but lack of global coordination: WHO chief scientist on Covid-19 pandemic Though the scientific achievement with regards to tackling Covid-19 pandemic is commendable, there was lack of global coordination on some of the issue and several countries did not abide by the framework put out by the World Health Organisation, Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist of WHO said on Thursday. Speaking at a panel discussion as part of BioAsia 2022, she said though over 70 per cent of people in high income countries vaccinate against less than 10 per cent of people in African countries even as there was ease on vaccine supply side globally. "I think while the scientific achievements have been absolutely outstanding such as vaccines in less than a year and a lot of progress on diagnostics, self-test kits and antivirals, technology and the genomic surveillance which has allowed us to track the evolution of the virus – but where we fell short was a global coordination the harmonised way of approaching the pandemic," she said. As city reaches saturation, DDMA to take call on closing vaccination sites in govt schools With most people in Delhi having received their shots against Covid-19, a call on closing vaccinations sites running in government schools is likely to be taken in Delhi Disaster Management Authority’s meeting on Friday. Districts have already started scaling down the number of session sites in each school, with students coming back. “Although vaccination is ongoing in almost all of the centres, the number of session sites (counters) at each centre has been reduced as part of the plan to optimise resources as very few people are coming in. So far, schools were being used for vaccination and distribution of ration. With students returning to schools and exams to be held offline, that will be difficult to continue,” said an official from the Delhi government’s health department. Recoveries breach 34 lakh mark in Tamil Nadu Continuing to report a sharp decline in the number of new Covid-19 infections, Tamil Nadu reported 575 cases in the last 24 hours, pushing the caseload to 34,47,581 while four more fatalities took the toll to 37,997. Recoveries reached 34,00,144 as 1,913 people were discharged, leaving 9,440 active infections. Eight more virus-related deaths were reported in Haryana on Thursday as 497 fresh cases surfaced. So far, 10,547 people have died from the infection in the state. On the same day, Goa reported 45 new positive cases and one patient died due to the infection, while Gujarat saw 293 new infections and eight deaths. Kerala sees 4,064 new cases, Odisha records 339 Kerala on Thursday recorded 4,064 fresh Covid-19 infections which raised the total caseload to 64,87,837 in the state. The southern state also reported 212 deaths which raised the total fatalities to 64,803, according to a government release. Meanwhile, Odisha recorded no new Covid-19 fatality on Thursday after more than a month, while 339 more people tested positive for the virus, pushing the tally to 12,83,978, the health department said. At the same time, Puducherry posted 18 new cases of coronavirus during the last 24 hours ending 10 a.m on Thursday pushing the total positives to 1,65,676. On the day, Arunachal Pradesh's Covid-19 tally rose to 64,372 as 31 more people tested positive for the infection, a senior health official said. The toll remained unchanged at 296 as no fresh fatality was recorded, State Surveillance Officer Dr Lobsang Jampa said. 556 cases in Delhi, 558 in Karnataka While Delhi on Thursday reported 556 Covid cases with a positivity rate of 1.10 per cent and six deaths due to the infection, Karnataka saw 588 fresh cases and 19 virus-related fatalities, taking the aggregate to 39,39,287 and the death toll to 39,885, and Meghalaya recorded 16 new cases, nine less than the previous day. Meanwhile, Telangana on Thursday recorded 311 new Covid cases, taking the total number of cases to 7,88,096, while the death toll rose to 4,111 with one more fatality. On the same day, Mumbai reported 119 new coronavirus cases and one pandemic-related death, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said in a release. The tally in Madhya Pradesh rose to 10,37,166 after detection of 668 new cases, while the toll increased to 10,724 as three patients succumbed to the infection. India generated blueprint for world to deal with future public health crisis, says new report Despite its huge diversity, India not only addressed the pandemic but also generated a blueprint for the world to deal with future public health crisis, stated two reports released by Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Wednesday. Titled 'Covid-19-India's Vaccine Development Story' and 'India's Covid-19 Vaccination Administration Journey', the two reports have been prepared by the Institute for Competitiveness which is a part of the global network of the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness and affiliated to Harvard Business School, PTI reported. 810 of 1,022 deaths in Jan, Feb were of comorbidities: Health dept data Majority of the deaths from Covid-19 reported in January and February across Maharashtra this year were of patients, who had co-morbid conditions like diabetes, hypertension and cardiac ailment. In January till mid Feb this year a total of 1,690 Covid-19 deaths were reported. “We could get information about the medical history of the deceased for 1,022 cases and around 810 had comorbidities. Of these 311 had hypertension, 206 patients were diabetic and 109 had heart conditions. Others had different ailments while around 212 did not have any comorbidity,” Dr Pradeep Awate, state surveillance officer said. Of the 1,690 deaths a total of 848 deaths were in the 61-80 age group. The overall case fatality ratio (CFR) has been 0.15 per cent and in children below 10 years the CFR has been the least as low at 0.03 per cent, Dr Awate said. (With PTI inputs)
