Covid update: Lanka may drop China vaccine; French save $146 billion in lockdown

• From India planning to integrate the private sector to accelerate its vaccination programme, to the government commenting on possible role of new virus variants behind recent infection spikes - here are the top news updates on the Covid-19 pandemic. Even as Maharashtra and Kerala see cases surge, the Union government said that the discovery of new strains of the virus cannot be linked to the spike yet. Meanwhile, Punjab and Rajasthan's Jodhpur announced fresh curbs to prevent another wave. In international news, Sri Lanka may drop Chinese vaccines as it places an order for 1.3 crore Oxford-AstraZeneca jabs. Watch the full video for the other updates on the spread of the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus.