Highlights:
- India break the record of a single day death toll with 4,205 fatalities due to COVID-19
- The total death count in India crosses the 2.5 lakh mark
- India also reported more than 3.48 lakh fresh cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours
India witnessed the daily COVID-19 related death toll reach a new grim high with 4,205 fatalities in the last 24 hours and also recorded 3,48,421 fresh cases as the frontline battles against the second wave of the Coronavirus which has now made India a global concern.
Here is the eleven-point sheet on this big story:
- Close to 30 lakh infections have been recorded in India since the 5th of May.
2. India’s total death count has passed the 2.5 lakh-mark, as per the data from the Health Ministry. The fresh surge takes active cases to 37,04,099 while the overall cases rose to 2.33 crore. India’s positivity rate stood at 17.56%
3. In the last 24 hours, 19,83,804 samples were tested, which is the most in a day since the pandemic broke. According to the government data, 24,46,674 vaccine doses were administered in a new record since India began the world’s largest vaccine drive on the 16th of January.
4. Even when the experts stressed on stepping up the vaccinations to combat the surge in COVID-19 cases, states have been scrambling to arrange doses. Delhi and some South-Indian states are considering the global-tender route. Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Odisha have already chosen this option.
5. Hit hard by the second wave, close to 90% of the country is staring a high positivity rate, the government said on Tuesday, stressing that 640 districts out of the 734 are above the national threshold level of 5%.
6. A variant of the virus – B.1.617 – which has been linked to the explosion of COVID-19 cases in India has been found in 44 countries, said the World Health Organization (WHO), days after labelling it as “a variant of concern”. The variant was first found in India in October.
7. Shocking images have also emerged from areas that are close to the Uttar Pradesh-Bihar border of bodies being tossed into the Ganga river, which has led to a blame game. Locals say ambulance drivers are throwing bodies of Covid patients into the river.
8. Mucormycosis – a rare but serious fungal infection – is now affecting coronavirus patients and has raised huge concern in Maharashtra, which has been recording India’s highest overall caseload. “There could be over 2,000 mucormycosis patients in the state, as of now, and with more and more COVID-19 cases coming up, their number would increase for sure,” said the state’s Health Minister Rajesh Tope on Tuesday, as per news agency PTI reported.
9. Bharat Biotech COVID-19 vaccine, Covaxin, has been recommended for the next phase of trials by an expert panel for the two-18 age group, PTI reported citing sources.
10. WHO has warned against the use of “ivermectin” – an orally-administered drug which is used to treat parasitic infections – for the treatment of COVID-19 patients. Earlier this week, the Goa government approved the use of “ivermectin” as a preventive treatment for all adults against the SARS-CoV2 virus that causes the COVID-19 disease.
11. This was the second day straight to see the daily new cases drop below the 3.5 lakh mark in India. Worldwide, almost 16 crore cases of COVID-19 have been reported since the pandemic broke in 2019.