Here are the top updates from Monday:

  1. The Tripura government announced that schools in the state will be allowed to reopen for Classes 6 to 12 from August 25, ANI reported, citing an official order. Meanwhile, in Telangana, all schools, anganwadi centres, and other educational institutions will reopen from September 1, Mint reported, citing Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao.
  2. India recorded 25,072 new coronavirus cases in a span of 24  hours, pushing the country’s infection tally to 3,24,49,306 since the pandemic broke out in January last year. With 389 deaths, the toll mounted to 4,34,756. Monday’s case tally was the lowest single-day count in 160 days.
  3. The United States Food and Drug Administration granted full approval to the coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer-BioNTech, Reuters reported. The shot became the first one to have received the clearance in the US. The Food and Drug Administration had in December given emergency-use authorisation to the vaccine.
  4. Maharashtra reported 27 new cases of the Delta plus variant of coronavirus, taking the tally of infections of the mutant strain to 103 – the highest among all states. Overall, the state recorded 3,643 new cases and 105 deaths in the last 24 hours.
  5. A third wave of the coronavirus pandemic in India may reach its peak around October, a committee set up by the Union home ministry said. The committee also warned about the lack of paediatric facilities in case a large number of children get affected. 
  6. As many as 11,349 citizens, who participated in the clinical trials of Covid-19 vaccines, Covishield and Covaxin, have been issued their vaccination certificates, the health ministry said. The ministry said in a statement that the Centre decided to issue the certificates to the participants, who were administered the vaccines during these trials.
  7. Kerala, which has been logging the highest number of daily cases among all states, recorded 13,383 new infections of coronavirus in the last 24 hours, reported PTI. As many as 90 people died due to the infection.
  8. No new cases were reported in China, bringing relief to the country which was witnessing a fresh outbreak of cases due to the Delta variant, AFP reported.
  9. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that it was “not sustainable” to continue with lockdowns forever, and urged citizens of the country to learn to live with Covid-19 once 70%-80% of the country’s people are vaccinated, Reuters reported.
  10. Globally, Covid-19 has infected more than 21.21 crore people and led to over 44.35 lakh deaths since the beginning of the pandemic in December 2019, according to Johns Hopkins University.