Second wave of Covid-19 has still not subsided: ICMR

Asserting that laxity in adopting Covid-19 appropriate behaviour may pose a serious challenge for the country, Dr Balram Bhargava, Director-General of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Monday said that the second wave of the pandemic has still not subsided as 80 districts in the country still have high positivity.

New Delhi: Asserting that laxity in adopting Covid-19 appropriate behaviour may pose a serious challenge for the country, Dr Balram Bhargava, Director-General of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Monday said that the second wave of the pandemic has still not subsided as 80 districts in the country still have high positivity. Dr Bhargava advised against any laxity at this stage. He also reiterated that Indian vaccines have been found effective against the alpha, beta, gamma and delta variants of Covid19. Dr Bhargava was taking in the 29th meeting of the Group of Ministers (GoM).

It was informed in the meeting that active cases continue to be concentrated mainly in Maharastra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Odisha which are reporting growth rate than the national Covid growth rate. Dr Surjeet Kumar Singh, Director, National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said that four states, including Kerala, Karnataka, Maharastra, and Tamil Nadu, report more than a hundred deaths daily.

Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan while addressing the GoM said that a total of 40,845 cases of Mucormycosis infections have been reported across India, of which 31,344 cases are rhinocerebral in nature. "Fatality from the infections stand at 3,129. Of the total numbers of Mucormycosis infections, 34,940 patients had Covid (85.5 per cent), 26,187 (64.11 per cent) were comorbid for diabetes while 21,523 (52.69 per cent) of those infected were on steroids," said Dr Vardhan.

He further said that 13,083 patients were in the group of 18-45, 17,464 were in the age group of 45-60 while 10,082 patients were 60 years and above. Dr Vardhan said that in the last 24 hours India had only 46,148 Covid cases making the active caseload declined significantly to 5,72,994. "The recovery rate is also steadily increasing and stands at 96.80 per cent as on Monday. 58,578 recoveries were registered in the last 24 hours," said Dr Vardhan.

Hailing India's efforts of vaccination, the health minister said, "India has achieved another milestone in Covid-19 vaccination and has overtaken the USA in the total number of Covid vaccine cases administered so far." Official statistics said that India is leading the list of country with the highest doses administered so far 32,36,63,297 followed by USA 32,33,27,328 and UK 7,67,74,990.