(TibetanReview.net, Jul17’21) – The Indian government has ordered 660 million vaccine doses for Aug-Dec 2021, its largest procurement, as state authorities and health experts warned that shortages could leave millions vulnerable if Coronavirus infections surge again amid suggestions that a third wave may be imminent if not already underway.
New Delhi aims to inoculate all of India’s estimated 944 million adults by Dec 2021, a target health experts have called ambitious, as only 8% of that number is currently vaccinated with the mandatory two doses, noted Reuters Jul 16.
The report said several states had reported vaccine shortages, with many inoculation centres shut and people having to wait for long hours at others for their shot.
Recent reports show that the rate of decline in daily new cases has been falling in recent weeks while the rate of transmissibility of infected persons, the R-value, has been rising in India.
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The latest data from India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare show that the number of daily new cases in the country had declined by just 870 to 38,079, while the daily new deaths had risen by18 to 560 in the past 24 hours recorded on Jul 17 at 8 AM, taking their cumulative totals to 31,064,908 cases and 413,091 deaths respectively.
The country reported its highest ever daily new cases of 4,14,188 on May 7.
Total recoveries have continued to improve to reach over 30.2 million (30,227,792 or 97.31%) while active cases have seen a decline by 6,397 to reach more than .42 million (424,025 or 1.36%).
The fatality rate was 1.33%.
The daily positivity rate has fallen to 1.91% and the weekly to 2.1%.
Ten states / Union Territories namely Kerala (+2,923), Jharkhand (+4), Uttarakhand (+6), Jammu And Kashmir (+12), Manipur (+475), Meghalaya (+172), Arunachal Pradesh (+85), Nagaland (+32), Mizoram (+129), and Andaman And Nicobar Islands (+3) have reported increases in active cases.
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. It is still among countries reporting the highest number of daily new cases.
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The cumulative total of Covid-19 cases among Tibetans in India and Nepal has remained unchanged for the second day at 5,356, according to the tally of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) on its Tibet.net website Jul 17. Of them 4,897 had recovered while 327 were active. Those who have died total 132.
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Across the world the number of Covid-19 cases totaled over 189 million (189,570,978) and the deaths over 4 million (4,076,356), according to the tally of Johns Hopkins University as of Jul 17, 2021 at 2:51 PM.
