Coronavirus India LIVE Updates: 1.86 Lakh New Covid Cases In 24 Hours, Lowest In 44 Days

At least 444 more people tested positive for COVID-19 in Arunachal Pradesh, pushing the tally in the northeastern state to 25,820, a senior health department official said on Friday.

The death count rose to 109 after two more persons succumbed to the infection in the last 24 hours, State Surveillance Officer (SSO) Dr Lobsang Jampa said.

A 54-year-old woman from Tawang had tested positive for the virus infection and was undergoing treatment at Dahung military hospital in West Kameng district. She died at the medical facility due to acute respiratory distress syndrome.

She was also suffering from hypertension, the SSO said.

The daily positivity has declined to 9 per cent. It has been less than 10 per cent for four consecutive days, the ministry said, adding the weekly positivity rate has further declined to 10.42 per cent.

The active cases have further reduced to 23,43,152 comprising 8.50 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has improved to 90.34 per cent.

While addressing reporters, Karnataka Deputy CM said, “No mixing of vaccines is taking place in the State. The people are being given the same dose of vaccines.”

“There are speculations that the healthcare workers are being given two different shots of vaccines. However, it is not true and there is no proof of it”, the Deputy Chief Miniter said.

With the addition of 822 new coronavirus cases, the infection count in Thane district of Maharashtra rose to 5,13,548, an official said on Friday.

The new cases were reported on Thursday, he said. The death count in the district rose to 9,061 after 52 more patients succumbed to the infection, the official said.

The mortality rate stood at 1.76 per cent, he added.

According to the academy, the sudden spurt in MIS-C cases has been observed typically in post-Covid patients mostly between 4 to 18 years. However, there are rare cases of MIS-C affecting babies six months old.

In India, 26 per cent population is under 14 years of age and around half of this percentage is aged under five years, according to the Indian Academy of Pediatric Intensive Care.

But she stressed that vaccination would not be compulsory and would have no bearing on whether children can attend school or go on holiday.

The European Medicines Agency is expected to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid jab for 12- to 15-year-olds on Friday. It is already authorised in the EU for those over 16.

“Children and young people aged 12 and over will have the chance to book a vaccine appointment from June 7,” Merkel said after talks with Germany’s regional leaders.

Due to the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis in India, the global supply of COVAX has been badly hit, so much so that there are many parts of the world where one shot has been dispensed to health workers or frontline workers and the second shot has not been forthcoming, a top Biden administration official told lawmakers on Thursday.

“COVAX has suffered a big blow given the scale of the pandemic in India,” Samantha Power, Administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), told members of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations for a hearing on the Fiscal 2022 Budget Request for the USAID.

“The Serum Institute of India, which had planned to supply upwards of 140 million doses by the end of June, has had to pull back that supply because of the domestic emergency,” Power said responding to a question on the vaccine crisis that has been created across the globe due to the scale of the pandemic in India.

“COVAX now is looking to countries like ours and other countries around the world to contribute supply, to donate supply,” she said.

This amount will be an add-on to the already-announced Rs 50,000 compensation to families of those who died due to COVID-19 infection.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government has formed a committee of six doctors to prepare the framework of the compensation.

The death count mounted to 14,975 after 148 more fatalities were reported from different parts of the state, it said.

West Bengal now has 1,17,154 active cases, while 11,99,120 patients have recovered from the disease, including 19,121 since Wednesday.