On Sunday morning, India recorded 3,33,533 new coronavirus cases taking the infection count in the country to 3,92,37,264 since the pandemic broke out in January 2020. The toll rose to 4,89,409 as 525 more people died due to the virus in the last 24 hours, government data showed.
The number of daily cases was 1.23% fewer than Saturday’s count of 3,37,704 infections. The country’s active caseload rose by 73,840 infections to 21,87,205.
India updates
On Friday, the central government asked the states and Union Territories to give Covid-19 vaccines to infected people three months after their recovery. The time period is to be followed in case of booster shots too, Union Health Ministry Additional Secretary Vikas Sheel said in a letter.
On Friday, both Delhi and Mumbai reported a decline in their test positivity rates. Karnataka, another state that has been reporting a high caseload, logged 42,470 infections on Saturday, nearly 6,000 fewer than on Friday. However, the decline was on the back of fewer tests being conducted, as the state’s positivity rate edge up higher from 19.23% on Friday, to 19.33% on Saturday.
In Kerala the positivity rate surged to 44.8% as the state logged 45,136 new cases on Friday.
The Delhi government has issued a set of standard operating procedures for Covid-care centres, PTI reported on Saturday. Under the guidelines, laboratories conducting coronavirus tests, have been asked to provide real-time data within 20 hours to the state Covid-19 response centre. They have also been asked to segregate the cases on the basis of districts, Assembly constituencies and wards.
The Uttar Pradesh government on Saturday said that educational institutions in the state will remain shut till January 30.
Global updates
The United States’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that unvaccinated adults infected with coronavirus were 17 times more likely to be hospitalised, The Guardian reported. The risk is three times higher in unvaccinated citizens aged 65 and above.
The World Health Organization on Saturday asked the countries with high vaccination coverage against Covid-19 to share doses with other nations before inoculating healthy children and adolescents, India Today reported.
Meanwhile, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was Sunday forced to call off her own wedding after she imposed tighter Covid-19 restrictions as nine Omicron variant cases emerged in the country, AFP reported.
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