Coronavirus: India reports 2.08 lakh new infections, 4.1K deaths
India on Wednesday reported 2.08 lakh new COVID-19 cases along with over 4,100 fresh deaths due to the viral disease. Notably, India's daily test positivity rate has now slipped to a little over 9% as over 22,17,320 samples were tested over a single day. However, if the pandemic is to be beaten, India's vaccination drive needs to be relooked at. Here are more details.
According to the Union Health Ministry, till Wednesday morning, India reported a total of 2,71,57,795 COVID-19 cases. The death toll has reached 3,11,388. So far, 2,43,50,816 patients have recovered, while 24,95,591 cases involve active infections. In the past 24 hours alone, India recorded 2,08,921 new infections, 2,95,955 more discharges, and 4,157 fresh fatalities. 20,06,62,456 vaccine doses have been administered so far.
Maharashtra reported 24,136 new COVID-19 cases along with 36,176 more recoveries. Karnataka, the second worst-hit state after Maharashtra, reported 22,758 new cases and 38,224 discharges. Meanwhile, the third worst-hit Kerala added 29,803 new cases and 33,397 recoveries. Tamil Nadu, the fourth worst-hit state, reported 34,285 new cases and 28,745 recoveries. Uttar Pradesh reported 3,957 new cases and 10,441 recoveries.
India had launched its vaccination drive on January 16. Since then, India has managed to fully vaccinate 42 million people or just over 3% of the country's population. India is also facing a critical vaccine shortage, due to which, daily vaccinations have declined since they peaked in early April. The expansion of the vaccination drive to include all adults has also been hindered.
According to data shared by the Health Ministry, some states are reporting really high vaccine wastage. These include Jharkhand (37.3% wastage), Chhattisgarh (30.2%), Tamil Nadu (15.5%), Jammu & Kashmir (10.8%), Madhya Pradesh (10.7%). The national average is 6.3%, the Ministry stated.
Critics have also blamed the government's vaccination policy. The government has now decided to make online vaccine registrations available in Hindi and other regional languages. Currently, registrations are only available in English, a language most of India is not familiar with. Experts also push for walk-in registrations for everyone, as the poorest may not have access to the internet for online registrations.
Krishna Udayakumar—the founding director of the Duke Global Health Innovation Center at Duke University in North Carolina—told Associated Press, "Inequitable vaccination risks prolonging the pandemic in India...Reducing barriers for the most vulnerable populations should be a priority."
