Coronavirus Cases In India: Over 89.32 lakh people have recovered since the beginning of pandemic (File)
New Delhi:
India recorded 36,604 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, taking the total Covid caseload to nearly 95 lakh. The number of fresh infections is over 17% higher than Tuesday’s figure. Up to 501 deaths have been reported during this time, pushed India’s total fatality to 1,38,122. Over 89.32 lakh people have recovered since the beginning of the pandemic – over 43,000 since Tuesday alone.
The number of active cases now stands at 4,28,644, down nearly 7,000 since Tuesday, according to the data from the Union Health Ministry.
The Covid vaccine developed by American pharma giant Pfizer, which was cleared by the United Kingdom Wednesday and will be rolled out to the public early next week, is unlikely to be available in India at this time, sources have told NDTV.
For a vaccine to be allowed in India it must clear clinical trials here, and sources said neither Pfizer nor its partner companies had asked to hold such trials. This means that even if Pfizer partners with an Indian company now it will take some time for the vaccine to be available in the country.
However, the Drugs Controller General of India has “discretionary power to waive localised clinical trials for a vaccine”, sources said, but also noted that till date all vaccines cleared by the DCGI had at least cleared limited Phase 3 trials.
Here are the LIVE updates on India Coronavirus Cases:
Nagaland’s COVID-19 recovery rate rose to 92.03 per cent on Wednesday as 164 patients were cured of the disease, while 45 fresh infections pushed the tally to 11,254, PTI reported.
The COVID-19 recovery rate has improved to 92.03 per cent surpassing the previous highest of 90.94 per cent recorded on December 1, Director of Health Department, Dr Denis Hangsing said in the daily COVID-19 bulletin.
The cumulative total of Covid-19 cases surged by nearly 30 percent across the Americas in just one month, the Pan American Health Organization warned Wednesday, releasing figures for November.
By the end of October, infections registered in North, South and Central America as well as the Caribbean for the whole pandemic stood at 20.5 million, according to PAHO figures.
A month later, the total had climbed by more than six million to 26.9 million.
That includes “record-setting daily cases registered in North America,” PAHO director Carissa Etienne said.
In the United States, Etienne said that more than 96,000 people are hospitalized — “the highest number since the onset of the pandemic.”
The US is seeing more than 150,000 new cases a day and fears a coronavirus super-surge following extensive travel over the Thanksgiving holiday.
The US hopes to have immunized 100 million people against Covid-19 by the end of February, a top official said Wednesday, which is approximately 40 percent of the country’s adult population.
The push should start within weeks, when vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna-NIH are expected to be approved.
Each of these require two doses, the second after three weeks and four weeks, respectively.
“Between mid-December, and the end of February, we will have potentially immunized 100 million people,” Moncef Slauoi, scientific advisor to the government’s Operation Warp Speed (OWS) program told reporters.
