India registered 43,393 new cases of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, taking the country’s tally since the pandemic broke out in January 2020 to 3,07,52,950. This is 5.4% lower from the daily infections count recorded on Thursday.
The country’s toll rose to 4,05,939 with 911 more deaths recorded in a span of 24 hours. The number of active cases in the country stood at 4,58,727.
The number of new Covid-19 infections has exceeded the daily recoveries. In the last 24 hours, the country registered 44,459 recoveries.
The recovery rate stood at 97.18% and the fatality rate at 1.32%.
So far, India has administered Covid-19 vaccine shots to 36,89,91,222 beneficiaries, of which 40,23,173 received them on Thursday alone.
The Gujarat government has suspended its vaccination drive on Thursday and Friday, but the administration did not provide a reason for which the inoculations were paused for these two days. No shots were administered on Wednesday either as the state observed “Mamata Diwas” – a universal immunisation programme for pregnant women, according to The Hindu.
World Health Organization’s Chief Scientist Dr Soumya Swaminathan on Thursday said that the overall efficacy data of Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin was “quite high”. “The vaccine efficacy against the Delta variant is low but it is still quite good,” she told CNBC TV-18. “The safety profile so far meets the WHO benchmarks.... We continue to seek more data.”
The Tokyo Olympics will take place without spectators as a resurgent coronavirus pandemic forced Japan to declare an emergency for the capital city that will remain effective throughout the event.
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