India reported 17,092 new coronavirus infections, raising the tally to 4,34,86,326, while the active cases have increased to 1,09,568, the Union Health Ministry said today. The death count has climbed to 5,25,168 with 29 new fatalities, data updated by the ministry.
The active cases comprise 0.25 per cent of the total infections. The national COVID-19 recovery rate was 98.54 per cent, the health ministry said.
An increase of 2,379 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 case count in a span of 24 hours.
The daily positivity rate was recorded at 4.14 per cent, while the weekly positivity rate was recorded at 3.56 per cent, according to the ministry.
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 4,28,51,590. The case fatality rate was 1.21 per cent.
According to the ministry, 197.84 crore doses of Covid vaccine have been administered in the country so far under the nationwide inoculation drive.
India’s COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 2020, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16. It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19, 2020.
The country crossed the grim milestone of two crore cases on May 4, 2021, three crore cases on June 23 and four crore cases on January 25 this year.
The 29 new fatalities included 15 from Kerala, four from Maharashtra, three from Delhi, two from Punjab and one each from Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Gujarat, Karnataka and Rajasthan, the data stated.
Government policy think tank NITI Aayog has released a compendium of Ayush-based practices from states and union territories for containing and managing the Covid-19 outbreak, an official statement said.
Releasing the compendium, NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Suman Bery said it is critical to communicate the learnings from the testing times during the Covid-19 outbreak about how Ayush practices implemented at national and state level benefited people.
The compendium provides information focused on practices adopted by various states and UTs of India for strengthening the country’s fight against Covid-19, using Ayush’s resources and interventions, Bery added.
The country’s current surge in Covid-19 cases is because of the BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron — which drove the third wave in January, along with BA.1 — and another sub-variant that has branched off from it, called BA.2.38. Earlier this week, Delhi reported its first couple of cases of the BA.5 sub-variant of Omicron — this was one of the sub-variants that led to an increase in cases in South Africa a couple of months ago. The first BA.5 case in India was reported in late May in Telangana.
Obesity has been identified as a risk factor for severe Covid-19 since early in the pandemic, but little was known until now about the effectiveness of the vaccines for people with obesity. Now a new study published in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology has found that body size was not a factor in the effectiveness of vaccines — two doses are highly effective against severe disease for people who are underweight, overweight, or who have obesity. In fact, the benefits were found to be slightly lower among underweight people compared to people with higher body mass index (BMI).
