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AS INDIA LOGS LOWEST COVID CASES IN 160 DAYS, GOVT REPORT WARNS OF THIRD WAVE PEAK IN OCT

India on Monday has reported 25,072 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, the lowest in 160 days, said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The cumulative caseload has increased to 3,24,49,306, while the national recovery rate has mounted to 97.63 per cent, the highest since March 2020. With 44,157 new recoveries in […]

India on Monday has reported 25,072 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, the lowest in 160 days, said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The cumulative caseload has increased to 3,24,49,306, while the national recovery rate has mounted to 97.63 per cent, the highest since March 2020. With 44,157 new recoveries in the last 24 hours, the recovery tally now stands at 3,16,80,626.

The active coronavirus cases have declined to 3,33,924, the lowest in 155 days comprising 1.03 per cent of the total infections, the lowest since March 2020. The death toll climbed to 4,34,756 with 389 new fatalities. The daily positivity rate was recorded at 1.94 per cent. It has been less than 3 per cent for the last 28 days, while the weekly positivity rate was recorded at 1.91 per cent.

With only 17 Covid-19 cases reported in the last 24 hours, Delhi recorded its lowest number of fresh infections this year. The national capital’s positivity rate today was reported to be 0.04 per cent, and with 374 active cases, the total cases in Delhi stand at 14,37,334, informed the Delhi Health Department. For the fourth consecutive day, Delhi has not recorded a single Covid fatality. The cumulative death toll of Covid-19 stands at 25,079. As many as 41 patients recovered from COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, taking the cumulative recoveries to 14,11,881 and the recovery rate to 98.22 per cent.

Meanwhile, the National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM), under the Ministry of Home Affairs, has warned of a third Covid-19 wave peak in October in its recent report to the Prime Minister’s Office.

The NIDM’s report quoted the Reuters’ opinion survey of 40 experts that forecasted that the third wave of the pandemic is likely to hit India between July 15 and October 13, 2021. On whether the Delta-Plus Variant will be the driver of the third wave, NIDM said the Delta-Plus variant formed due to the mutation in the B.1.617.2 (Delta variant) that drove the fatal second surge in India. This new variant of concern is a sub-lineage of the Delta variant that has acquired a spike protein mutation ‘K417N’ which is also found in the Beta variant (first detected in South Africa).

“Though there is not enough evidence as of now to designate the Delta Plus variant as more dangerous than Delta, according to NCDC, as of August 2, 2021, this variant has been detected in 70 cases across 16 states from the 58,240 samples that have been sequenced so far in India,” it said.

Emphasising the effect of the potential Covid third wave on children, the report said the Indian Academy of Paediatrics found that there is no biological evidence that the current and the new Delta Plus variant will affect children more than adults.

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