COVID19: India reports 2.59 lakh new cases in last 24 hours

India on Tuesday reported 2,59,170 new Covid cases and 1,761 deaths in the last 24 hours.

As many as1,54,761 discharges were made in the last 24 hours, as per Union Health Ministry. ‘The Covid tally at present in the country is at 1,53,21,089, Total recoveries stand at 1,31,08,582. The total death toll is at 1,80,530. The country has 20,31,977 active cases.

The US’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has advised its citizens to avoid travelling to India. In its advisory, the CDC stated that there is “very high level of covid-19” in India. Britain has also added India to its COVID-19 travel “red list”, which bans all travel from the country and makes a 10-day hotel quarantine mandatory for UK residents returning to the country.

Meanwhile, the government on Monday announced that every person above the age of 18 years will be eligible to be vaccinated against Covid-19 from May 1. The announcement, one of four significant shifts in the government’s vaccination policy, came at the end of a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi against the backdrop of a relentless surge in coronavirus cases. Apart from this, vaccine manufacturers will be incentivised to further scale up their production, as well as attract new national and international players. Vaccine manufacturers will be empowered to release up to 50% of their supply to state government and in the open market at a pre-declared price.

The Union Health Ministry Monday said Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Rajasthan are among the 10 states that account for 78.58 per cent of the new Covid-19 cases reported in a day. The other states in the list of 10 are Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

Also, within hours of Delhi announcing a weeklong lockdown to tackle the second Covid surge, and despite an appeal from Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, a familiar scene from last year played out at the national capital’s bus terminals and railway stations — hundreds of migrant workers lining up to leave for home.

Comparing the ongoing second wave with the first surge late last year, a key government task force on Covid Monday said there is a higher requirement of supplemental oxygen this time but there is no difference in the percentage of deaths and only marginally higher proportions of younger patients.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Kashmir Monitor staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)