(TibetanReview.net, Jan03’21) – Prime Minister Narendra Modi has on Jan 3 hailed the approval of two coronavirus vaccines for emergency use in India, calling it a “decisive turning point” in the spirited fight against the pandemic. He has added that it will accelerate the process for the country to become a Covid-free nation.
Modi’s tweets came after the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) approved Oxford’s vaccine Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin for restricted emergency use in the country. The two vaccines are still undergoing final stage trials but deemed safe enough for emergency inoculation for healthcare and other frontline workers as well as those who are most susceptible to the virus such as the old and those suffering from comorbidities.
The approval by the DCGI was given on the basis of recommendations submitted by a COVID-19 subject expert committee (SEC) of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO).
Earlier, on Jan 2, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Director, Dr Randeep Guleria, said India was ready for a mass rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine within the coming 10 to 14 days, noted the News18.com Jan 2.
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India has been reporting continuous drop in weekly and active cases over the past several months.
The latest data from India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare show that there were 18,177 new cases and 217 new deaths in the country in the past 24 hours as of Jan 3 at 8AM, taking their cumulative totals to 10,323,965 cases and 149,435 deaths. The number of deaths was the lowest since Jun 1, noted the timesofindia.com Jan 3 while the number of new cases was 4.7% lower than that reported the day before, noted the ndtv.com Jan 3.
A total of 9,927,310, or 96.15%, had recovered while the number of active cases was 247,220, or 2.39% of the total. The case fatality rate continued to be 1.45%. These were mostly improvements over the previous day’s percentage figures.
The latest daily number of new cases, at 18,177, was less than the daily number of those who had recovered, at 20,923, leading to a decline in the number of active cases by just 2,963.
Kerala continued to report the highest number of daily new cases at 5,328, followed by Maharashtra (3,218), Chattisgarh (1,147), Tamil Nadu (910), West Bengal (863), Karnataka (755), Gujarat (741), Madhya Pradesh (731), Uttar Pradesh (683), … Himachal Pradesh (149), and so on.
The 217 new fatalities include 51 from Maharashtra, 28 from West Bengal, 21 from Kerala, 15 from Punjab, 14 from Delhi, 11 each from Tamil Nadu and Chattisgarh, 9 from Madhya Pradesh, 8 from Uttar Pradesh, … 2 from Himachal Pradesh and so on.
The active caseload remained below 3 lakh for the 13th consecutive day.
India is currently the country with the world’s second highest number of Covid-19 cases and the third highest number of deaths.
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The cumulative total of Covid-19 cases among Tibetans in India, Nepal and Bhutan was had remained unchanged for the second day at 1,448, said the covid-19 task force of the Central Tibetan Administration as its 40th media briefing Jan 3. Of them 1,381 had recovered, 30 were active and 37 had died.
The task force said there were 14 new cases among Tibetans in India during the past one week. They included 1 from Mainpat, 4 from Ladakh, 1 from Ravangla, and 8 from Dekyiling.
The oldest was stated to be 76 and the youngest is 1 and half years old. Besides, 7 were stated to be symptomatic.
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Across the world the number of Covid-19 cases totaled 84,642,411 and the deaths 1,836,993, according to the tally of Johns Hopkins University as of 2:53 PM on Jan 3, 2021.
