India records 36,571 new Covid-19 cases 540 new deaths in the 24 hours ending 8 am on Friday. The recovery rate jumped to over 97.52%.
It was heartening news is India’s recovery rate jumped to 97.52 per cent on Thursday, which is the recorded highest since March last year. The active cases dwindled down to 3.64 lakh, the lowest in 149 days.
On the fatality curve, 40 new deaths were reported, in the 24 hours ending 8 am Friday. On Thursday, 540 new deaths were reported, with Kerala reporting the highest single-day fatalities, at 197, followed by Maharashtra’s 158 deaths. Delhi records the lowest case spike since April 2020.
On Thursday, the capital, Delhi, recorded 25 new Covid-19 cases, the lowest since April 15, 2020. Thus, the national capital’s positivity rate further dipped to 0.04 per cent. Delhi’s stock of Covid-19 vaccines will only last for three more days, a vaccination bulletin issued by the state government has stated.
In the meantime, Johnson & Johnson seeks permission to conduct a vaccine study on Indian adolescents. This comes as Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya announced that the COVID-19 vaccines for children could be launched “very soon”, and the results of ongoing research regarding the vaccines is expected to arrive next month. Mandaviya highlighted the Centre is committed to vaccinating every citizen against the virus.
In additional news, according to an RTI response filed by the COVID-19 Vaccine Administration Cell of the Union Health Ministry, the data on CoWin portal, as of August 17, shows that the “total number of beneficiaries who got their first dose of Covishield Vaccine but did not get their second dose within stipulated period of time” is 3,40,72,993. Similarly, the number stands at 46,78,406 for Covaxin recipients.
Of concern is the very infectious Delta variant and a UK-based study by Oxford University has discovered that obtaining two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech or Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines remains the most effective way to ensure protection against the Covid-19 Delta variant of concern.