India declares Delta-plus a Covid-19 ‘variant of concern’ as 40 cases detected

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India declares Delta-plus a Covid-19 ‘variant of concern’ as 40 cases detected. (Photo courtesy: BBN Times)

(TibetanReview.net, Jun23’21) – India’s Health Ministry has on Jun 22 categorised the Delta Plus variant of the novel coronavirus, so far detected in four states in the country, as a ‘variant of concern’ and directed states to take up immediate containment measures in clusters where the variant has been detected.

The WHO classifies a variant as one of concern when it is associated with an increase in transmissibility; increase in virulence; or decrease in the effectiveness of public health and social measures or available diagnostics, vaccines, therapeutics.

The fear is that this new variant may lead to a third wave of the pandemic in the country. So far 40 cases of this variant has been detected in the country, most of it in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Meanwhile, a day after India saw a record single-day Covid-19 vaccination of over 88 lakh doses, the country has managed just 52.8 lakh vaccinations by 10 pm on Jun 22. New Delhi has expressed confidence, nevertheless, that with increased vaccine production and states being given a better advance schedule of supplies, the numbers will remain high so as to achieve the goal of full vaccination of all the 950-or-so million adults by the end of this year.

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Meanwhile the latest data from India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare show that the number of daily new cases in the country had increased by 8,208 to 50,848, while the daily new deaths had increased by 191 to 1,358 in the past 24 hours recorded on Jun 23 at 8 AM, taking their cumulative totals to 30,028,709 cases and 390,660 deaths respectively.

The country reported its highest ever daily new cases at 4,14,188 on May 7.

Total recoveries have continued to improve to reach over 28.99 million (28,994,855 or 96.56%) while active cases have further declined to reach over .64 million (643,194 or 2.14%).

The case fatality rate was unchanged at 1.30%.

The daily positivity rate has risen to 2.67% while the weekly rate had fallen to 3.12%.

Only Kerala (+746), Assam (+350), Meghalaya (+77), Arunachal Pradesh (+9), Mizoram (+197) and Dadra And Nagar Haveli And Daman And Diu (+1) have reported increases in active cases.

Also, only Kerala (12,617) has reported more than 10,000 daily new cases, while Maharashtra (8,470), Tamil Nadu (6,890) have reported more than 5,000 daily new cases this morning.

Five states continue to have more than 53,000 active cases, namely Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh.

India is currently the country with the world’s second highest total number of Covid-19 cases after the USA, and the third highest total number of deaths after the USA and Brazil.

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The number of new Covid-19 cases among Tibetans in India and Nepal has remained unchanged for the second day at 5,042, according to the tally of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) on its Tibet.net website Jun 23. Of them 4,369 had recovered while 545 were active. A total of 128 have died.

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Across the world the number of Covid-19 cases totaled over 179 million (179,199,021) and the deaths over 3.88 million (3,883,483), according to the tally of Johns Hopkins University as of Jun 23, 2021 at 3:51 PM.

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