(TibetanReview.net, Mar23’21) – India has decided to open Covid-19 vaccination for everybody above 45 years of age from Apr 1, following continued sharp increases in daily new cases.
The country recorded 260,000 fresh cases last week – one of the worst weekly increases since the pandemic began early last year, reported bbc.com Mar 22. The western state of Maharashtra accounts for nearly 70% of the national caseload.
India’s caseload began to dip at the start of 2021 with daily infections falling to less than 20,000 from a peak of over 90,000 in September. But the last few weeks have seen a sharp uptick. While Maharashtra leads the table, several other states – Kerala, Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh – are also seeing a rise in cases, the report noted.
According to WHO data, on Mar 22, Brazil reported 79,069 new cases, the highest in the world, followed by the US at 60,228 and India at 46,951 cases, reported the timesofindia.com Mar 23.
The bbc.com report cited experts as saying poor adherence to safety protocols is driving the surge while some were cited as saying new variants could also be a reason.
But in Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh has expressed concern as 81% of latest 401 samples sent by his state for genome sequencing show new UK Covid variant, affecting more young people.
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The latest data from India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare show that there were 40,715 new Covid-19 cases and 199 new deaths in the country in the past 24 hours as of Mar 23 at 8 AM, taking their cumulative totals to 11,686,796 cases and 160,166 deaths respectively.
A total of 11,181,253, or 95.67%, had recovered while the number of active cases was 345,377, or 2.96% of the total. The case fatality stands at 1.37%.
The latest daily number of new cases, at 40,715, was substantially higher than the daily number of those who had recovered, at 29,789, leading to a big jump in the number of active cases by 10,731.
Eight states have reported more than 1,000 new cases in the last 24 hours, namely Maharashtra (24,645), Punjab (2,299), Kerala (1,239), Karnataka (1,445), Gujarat (1,640), Madhya Pradesh (1,348), Tamil Nadu (1,385), and Chattisgarh (1,525).
Thirteen more states/Union Territories have reported more than 100 new cases in the last 24 hours, namely Delhi (888), Haryana (865), Rajasthan (602), Uttar Pradesh (538), West Bengal (368), Andhra Pradesh (310), Telangana (412), Chandigarh (208), Himachal Pradesh (200), Odisha (146), Jammu and Kashmir (132), Jharkhand (110), and Uttarakhand (104).
Twelve states have reported 3 or more Covid-19 deaths each in the last 24 hours, namely Maharashtra (58), Punjab (58), Kerala (12), Chattisgarh (12), Tamil Nadu (10), Karnataka (10), Delhi (7), Rajasthan (5), Gujarat (4), Haryana (3), Himachal Pradesh (3), and Telangana (3). The rest of the states have reported 2 or less deaths.
India is currently the country with the world’s second highest number of Covid-19 cases and the fourth highest number of deaths in cumulative numbers.
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The cumulative total of Covid-19 cases among Tibetans in India, Nepal and Bhutan has risen by 5 to reach 1,635 in the last 24 hours. Of them 1,556 had recovered, 33 were active and 46 had died, according to the tally of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) as of Mar 23.
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Across the world the number of Covid-19 cases totaled 123,777,544 and the deaths 2,725,512, according to the tally of Johns Hopkins University as of 4:56 PM on Mar 23, 2021.
