(TibetanReview.net, Apr13’21) – As daily new Covid-19 cases in India keep skyrocketing, the novel coronavirus variant that is causing the current wave is not just highly infectious but also stealthy, avoiding detection even after repeated tests through RT-PCR, considered the gold standard for Covid testing, reported the timesofindia.com Apr 13.
To deal with the skyrocketing of cases, India has given emergency use authorisation (EUA) for the Russian vaccine Sputnik V. India will produce 850m Sputnik doses annually and has become the 60th country to approve the vaccine.
Also, approvals will be granted for vaccines that have been granted EUA in other countries to expand the basket of vaccines for domestic use and to hasten the pace and coverage of vaccination, said another timesofindia.com report Apr 13.
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The latest data from India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare show that there were 161,736 new Covid-19 cases and 879 new deaths in the country in the past 24 hours as of Apr 13 at 8 AM, taking their cumulative totals to 13,689,453 cases and 171,058 deaths respectively.
A total of 12,253,697, or 89.51%, had recovered while the number of active cases was 1,264,698, or 9.24% of the total. However, the case fatality has further fallen to 1.25%.
The active caseload was at its lowest at 1,35,926 on Feb 12 comprising 1.25% of the total infections.
The latest daily number of new cases, at 161,736, was substantially higher than the daily number of those who had recovered, at 97,168, leading to a big jump in the number of active cases by 63,689.
Twenty states/Union Territories have reported more than 1,000 new cases in the last 24 hours, namely Maharashtra (51,751), Chattisgarh (13,576), Uttar Pradesh (13,604), Delhi (11,491), Karnataka (9,579), Tamil Nadu (6,711), Madhya Pradesh (6,489), Gujarat (6,021), Rajasthan (5,771), Kerala (5,692), West Bengal (4,511), Haryana (3818), Punjab (3,451), Andhra Pradesh (3,263), Telangana (3,052), Bihar (2,999), Jharkhand (2,366), Odisha (1,741), Uttarakhand (1,334), and Himachal Pradesh (1,089).
Six more states/Union Territories have reported more than 100 new cases in the last 24 hours, namely Jammu and Kashmir (991), Goa (476), Assam (583), Chandigarh (424), Puducherry (512), and Ladakh (125).
Nineteen states/Union Territories have reported 6 or more Covid-19 deaths each in the last 24 hours, namely Maharashtra (258), Chattisgarh (132), Uttar Pradesh (72), Punjab (52), Gujarat (55), Delhi (72), Karnataka (52), Madhya Pradesh (37), Rajsthan (25), Tamil Nadu (19), Jharkhand (19), West Bengal (14), Haryana (14), Kerala (11), Andhra Pradesh (11), Himachal Pradesh (9), Uttarakhand (7), Telangana (7), Bihar (6). The rest of the states/Union Territories have reported 2 or less deaths.
India is now 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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After remaining unchanged for six days the cumulative total of Covid-19 cases among Tibetans in India, Nepal and Bhutan has increased by 39 to reach 1,771, according to the tally of the Central Tibetan Administration on its Tibet.net website Apr 13. Of them, 1,633 had recovered, 90 were active and 48 had died.
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Across the world the number of Covid-19 cases totaled 136,744,941 and the deaths 2,948,317, according to the tally of Johns Hopkins University as of 3:50 PM on Apr 13, 2021.