India’s daily Covid tally rises marginally to 62,224; active cases below 900,000

India on Wednesday reported 62,224 new cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) and 2,542 related fatalities, taking the caseload and death toll to 29,633,105 and 379,573 respectively, according to the Union health ministry. This is the ninth consecutive day that the daily cases remained below the 100,000-mark. On Tuesday, 60,471 people had tested positive for the viral disease.

More than 107,600 people recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours which took the total recoveries in the country to 28,388,100, the health ministry update at 8am showed. The active cases, meanwhile, declined to 865,432 and now constitute 3.09 per cent of the caseload.

A total of 383,306,971 samples have been tested for the Covid-19 disease till now of which 1,930,987 were tested in the last 24 hours, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said on Wednesday.

Daily infections in India have been ebbing since May as a result of lockdown or lockdown-like restrictions imposed by states and Union Territories (UTs). And due to this declining trend, several states including Delhi, have begun their unlocking process with a view to revive their economies.

Delhi on Monday saw re-opening of restaurants with 50% seating capacity, salons and opening of market complexes and malls daily from 10am to 8pm. Maharashtra has devised a five level-unlock plan on the basis of Covid-19 positivity rate and occupancy of oxygen beds in cities and districts. State capital Mumbai, which has been placed under-level, has allowed malls and movie theatres to function at 50 per cent capacity, reopening of gymnasiums etc.

Lockdown in Haryana has been extended till June 21 but the state government has provided relaxations such as 50 per cent seating capacity for restaurants and bars from 10am to 10pm, opening of gymnasiums from 6am to 8pm with 50 per cent capacity, opening of shops on daily basis among others.

However, experts have warned that resuming business activities in a hurry would compromise vaccination efforts. According to news agency Reuters, India has been administering an average of 2.4 million Covid-19 vaccine doses per day. Health officials told Reuters that vaccination needs to be at four times higher in order to avoid a third wave of the pandemic.

The country has so far inoculated 259,044,072 beneficiaries so far, of which 3,927,154 were inoculated in the last 24 hours.

The National AEFI (Adverse Events Following Immunisation) committee in its recent report confirmed the death of a 68-year old man due to anaphylaxis after he was administered the Covishield vaccine on March 8.

"It is the first death linked to Covid vaccination due to anaphylaxis. It re-emphasises the need to wait for 30 minutes at the inoculation centre after receiving the jab. Most anaphylactic reactions occur during this period and prompt treatment prevents deaths," Dr NK Arora, advisor to the National AEFI committee told PTI.