Covid-19: India records 14,148 new cases, 302 deaths

India witnessed a slight drop in fresh coronavirus cases and a rise in daily deaths, recording 14,148 new cases and 302 deaths in the last 24 hours ending at 8 am on Thursday. The country’s active caseload currently stands at 1,48,359, comprising 0.35 per cent of total cases. Daily Covid-19 cases have remained below one lakh for 18 consecutive days.
With 30,009 patients recovering from Covid-19 since yesterday, the recovery rate is now at 98.46 per cent. The daily positivity rate is now at 1.22 per cent, while the weekly positivity rate stands at 1.6 per cent.
Cumulative Covid-19 vaccine doses adminered in India cross 176.47 crore
Over 176 crore vaccine doses have been adminered so far as part of the nationwide vaccination drive, the Union Minry of Health and Family Welfare announced on Thursday.
More than 26 lakh (26,88,373) vaccine doses have been adminered till 7 pm. More than 1.94 crore (1,94,97,567) precaution doses to healthcare workers, frontline workers and those aged 60 and above with comorbidities have been given, it said.
The daily vaccination tally is expected to increase with the compilation of the final reports for the day late night. (PTI)
India generated blueprint for world to deal with future public health crisis, says new report
Despite its huge diversity, India not only addressed the pandemic but also generated a blueprint for the world to deal with future public health crisis, stated two reports released Union Health Miner Mansukh Mandaviya on Wednesday.
The reports also underlined that a strong political commitment and coordination among stakeholders led to the horic feat of adminering over 176 crore Covid vaccine doses.
Titled ‘Covid-19-India’s Vaccine Development Story’ and ‘India’s Covid-19 Vaccination Adminration Journey’, the two reports have been prepared the Institute for Competitiveness which is a part of the global network of the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness and affiliated to Harvard Business School. (PTI)
Six private labs included in India’s Covid-19 genomic sequencing consortium
The department of biotechnology on Tuesday approved the inclusion of six private laboratories to India’s Sars-CoV-2 genomic sequencing consortium, which has been keeping track of the mutations in the virus and emerging variants since last year. The consortium, INSACOG, is a network of 10 central laboratories acting as hubs and 28 regional laboratories working as spokes.
The inclusion of the private laboratories was approved nearly five months after the department released the standard operating procedures for the same.
Four of the six laboratories that have been included in the consortium are from Bengaluru, one from Delhi, and one from Ahmedabad, according to an office memoradum, which states, “the competent authority of the department of biotechnology has approved the inclusion of the following private genome sequencing laboratories in the Indian Sars-CoV-2 Genomic Consortium (INSACOG).”

810 of 1,022 deaths in Jan, Feb were of comorbidities: Health dept data
Majority of the deaths from Covid-19 reported in January and February across Maharashtra this year were of patients, who had co-morbid conditions like diabetes, hypertension and cardiac ailment.
In January till mid Feb this year a total of 1,690 Covid-19 deaths were reported. “We could get information about the medical hory of the deceased for 1,022 cases and around 810 had comorbidities. Of these 311 had hypertension, 206 patients were diabetic and 109 had heart conditions. Others had different ailments while around 212 did not have any comorbidity,” Dr Pradeep Awate, state surveillance officer said. Of the 1,690 deaths a total of 848 deaths were in the 61-80 age group. The overall case fatality ratio (CFR) has been 0.15 per cent and in children below 10 years the CFR has been the least as low at 0.03 per cent, Dr Awate said.