India recorded 38,079 new coronavirus cases in 24 hours upto Saturday morning, taking the tally of infections since the outbreak of the pandemic in January last year to 3,10,64,908. The number was 2.23% fewer than Friday’s count of 38,949 cases.

The country’s toll rose to 4,13,091 as 560 more patients died due to the infection.

The number of active cases in India stood at 4,24,025, while the count of recoveries reached 3,02,27,792.

Source: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Friday asked district collectors in the state to ensure that economic activities and livelihood of citizens is not disturbed due to a potential third wave of the coronavirus, PTI reported. Maharashtra has been reporting a high number of daily cases, second only to Kerala.

Meanwhile, the Bombay High Court said it was not satisfied with the Thackeray-led government’s progress on framing guidelines for door-to-door vaccination against Covid-19 for senior citizens and bedridden persons, The Indian Express reported. A two-judge bench led by Chief Justice Dipankar Datta directed the state to formulate a policy for inoculation at homes by July 20.

World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the efforts to rule out the possibility of spread of the virus because of a leak from a laboratory accident was “premature”, AP reported.

“I was a lab technician myself, I’m an immunologist, and I have worked in the lab, and lab accidents happen,” Tedros said. “It’s common.”

This was a departure from an earlier observation made by a WHO panel, which said a lab-acquired infection was unlikely because of the strict biosafety protocols in laboratories of Chinese city of Wuhan, the likely site of the potential leak.

Globally, the coronavirus disease has infected over 18.94 crore people and killed over 40.74 lakh in the world since the pandemic broke out in December 2019, according to Johns Hopkins University.