India on Friday reported 1,685 new Covid cases, 253 fewer than Thursday, with 4,30,16,372 overall cases registered so far. Eighty-three deaths have been reported in a span of 24-hours, according to the official data, taking the total number of deaths to 51,67,55. The active cases further declined to 21,530, which is .05 per cent of total cases so far.
According to the health ministry, the daily positivity rate stands at 0.24 percent. The weekly positivity rate in the country has been recorded at 0.33 percent. Meanwhile, the national Covid recovery rate was recorded at 98.75 percent.
The latest figures show India has given 182.51 crore doses of vaccines since it began the world’s largest Covid vaccination drive. A total of 1,82,55,75,126 vaccines have been administered in the country so far. In the vaccination drive for children aged 12-14, which began last week, over 88 lakh doses of Corbevax – the only vaccine available for this age group now – have been administered. Meanwhile, Novovax on Tuesday announced that it has received the first emergency use authorization nod for its Covid-19 vaccine for adolescents in the age bracket of 12-18 years in India.
While the Covid-19 situation in India is currently under control and is seeing a sharp decline in the daily cases, experts have sounded an alarm about a possible fourth wave.
On the global front, a large part of Europe, the UK, the United States, China, and Hong Kong have been witnessing a sharp rise in new cases of Covid-19 infections. China, currently, is the worst-hit country due to the BA.2 covid variant, which has announced travel bans and lockdowns in more than 20 provinces and cities, including Jilin, Hebei, Guangdong, and Shanghai.