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India’s new Covid-19 cases rise marginally; 15,968 infections in last 24 hours
The country’s Covid-19 tally rose to 10,495,147, the Union health ministry’s dashboard showed on Wednesday.
India's tally of cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) rose to 10,495,147 on Wednesday after the Union health ministry reported that the country had logged a total of 15,968 new infections in the preceding 24 hours. This latest rise in cases came a day after India had logged 12,584 new Covid-19 cases, the lowest in a single-day since June last.
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The trend of more daily new recoveries than fresh cases continued, as 17,817 new recoveries took the total number of recovered cases to 10,129,111, the ministry's dashboard showed on Wednesday. There were 202 new deaths in the last 24 hours, the dashboard showed, taking the death toll to 151,529. Active cases, meanwhile, slumped by 2,051 and are at 214,507, as per the data. Recovered cases, active cases and deaths contribute 96.49%, 2.07% and 1.44% respectively of the country's total cases.
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These latest numbers come at a time pan-India vaccination delivery is taking place, with the world's largest immunisation drive scheduled to begin on January 16. Earlier this month, the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) gave emergency use authorisation (EUA) to Oxford University-AstraZeneca's Covishield; the vaccine will be manufactured here by Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII). The other vaccine to be granted EUA was Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech International Limited's Covaxin, India's first indigenous vaccine against the disease.
On Tuesday, day one of the vaccine delivery, a total of 5.65 million vaccine doses were transported from Pune to various cities in the country, including Delhi. In his virtual interaction with chief ministers of Monday, prime minister Narendra Modi had said a total of 30 million frontline workers would be vaccinated first, with total 300 million citizens to be vaccinated in the next few months.
