The Union Health Ministry on Thursday while updating on India's COVID-19 situation said that 68% of fresh cases reported in the last week have been found in Kerala. The ministry said that in the last 24 hours 43,263 cases were reported out of which 32,000 are from Kerala itself.
Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan during a press briefing said, "We're are still witnessing 2nd surge, it's not over". "Overall declining trend is a little less than 50% which was there in 1st wave," he added.
Amid surge in cases, ICMR's Dr Balram Bhargava urged for low key celebrations ahead of the festival season which starts with Ganesh Chaturthi in few days. "Low key celebrations of festivals should be encouraged to avoid the spread. Responsible travel rather than revenge travel should be practiced," Dr Bhargava said.
Meanwhile commenting on the vaccination drive, Rajesh Bhushan said, "the pace of vaccination and coverage is rapidly increasing." "
"The average per-day dose administered has increase from 20 lakhs in May to 78 lakhs in September and this number is expected to climb even higher," he added.
On the other hand, Balram Bhargava said "We are developing a COVID-19 vaccine tracker with synergised data giving a week by week update of doses... It will be up on the Health Ministry's website in a few days' time."
"It's clear that two doses show complete protection, 58% above 18 years given single dose, it should be 100%." said Dr VK Paul, Member-Health, Niti Aayog.
"No one should be left behind...About 72 crore vaccine doses given, those left should get administered to develop herd immunity," he added.
The health ministry panel commenting on the reopening of schools said, Vaccinating children is not a condition for reopening schools.
"This criterion is not acceptable anywhere in the world, no scientific body, epidemiological evidence suggests it as a condition...However, vaccination of staff is desirable," VK Paul said.
Meanwhile, India witnessed a spike of 14 per cent in the daily new cases on Thursday as the country recorded 43,263 new infections in the last 24 hours.
The report also said that a total of 53,68,17,243 samples for Covid-19 have been tested in the country, of which 18,17,639 were tested in the last 24 hours.
On the other hand, India has so far administered over 71 crore (71,65,97,428) doses of Covid vaccines, out of which 86,51,701 doses were administered in the last 24 hours.
This is the second consecutive day that the rise had been reported. On Wednesday, the daily Covid tally was 37,875 new infections.
