India reports 9,062 new COVID-19 cases

NEW DELHI, Aug. 17– India recorded 9,062 new cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, taking the total tally to 44,286,256, showed federal health ministry data released on Wednesday. With the reporting of fresh cases, India’s active caseload currently stands at 105,058.. On Monday head of Serum Institute of India, Adar Poonawalla told a local news channel that it was…

NEW DELHI, Aug. 17 (Xinhua) — India recorded 9,062 new cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, taking the total tally to 44,286,256, showed federal health ministry data released on Wednesday.

The newly reported cases mark an increase from the daily caseload on Tuesday of 8,813.

With the reporting of fresh cases, India’s active caseload currently stands at 105,058.

The country also logged 36 related deaths during the past 24 hours, taking the overall death toll to 527,134 since the beginning of the pandemic, the ministry said.

With the increase in cases, the daily positivity rate stands at 2.49 percent. The weekly positivity rate is recorded at 4.38 percent.

The health ministry said that so far 43,654,064 COVID-19 cases have been cured and discharged from hospitals in India, including 15,220 new recoveries.

According to health authorities, 2,085,715,251 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in the South Asian country, and 881,056,541 tests have been conducted including 364,038 tests on Tuesday.

India’s health experts say COVID-19 is a cyclical disease and will come in waves.

On Monday head of Serum Institute of India, Adar Poonawalla told a local news channel that it was working on an Omicron specific vaccine with Novavax. According to Poonawalla the vaccine will be specific to the BA.5 sub-variant of Omicron and can be expected within six months.

Amid an increase in daily new cases, the local governments in the Indian capital Delhi and neighboring state of Punjab have made wearing of masks in public places mandatory and asked officials to enforce the order by imposing fines on the violators.

A local television news channel last week quoted Dr. N. K. Arora, a member of the government’s COVID-19 task force as saying that the sub-variants of Omicron circulating in Delhi are more infectious than the base strain that surfaced in January this year and along with it, the effectiveness of the vaccines in preventing infections has dropped 20-30 percent.

Following the detection of new sub-variants, the Indian government is currently focusing on improving the vaccine booster dose coverage as the uptake for a third dose has been low.

Health officials have blamed the recent surge in new cases to people letting their guard down and not following social distancing norms.

Recently India’s federal health ministry has instructed several states to ensure adequate testing, promote COVID-19-appropriate behavior and increase the pace of vaccination to contain the ongoing increase in cases.

It also warned that the upcoming festivals and mass congregations in different parts of the country may potentially facilitate the transmission of infectious diseases, including COVID-19. Enditem