India on Thursday morning recorded 46,164 new coronavirus cases in 24 hours, pushing the infection count in the country to 3,25,58,530 since the pandemic first broke out in January last year. The number of daily cases is 22.7% higher than Wednesday’s count of 37,593.

With 607 deaths, the toll climbed to 4,36,365. So far, 3,17,88,440 people have recovered from the infection. The number of active cases rose to 3,33,725.

Of the total 46,164 new cases on Thursday morning, Kerala accounted for 68% of the infections with 31,445 cases. The positivity rate in the state stood at 19.03%. This was the first instance since May 20 when the state logged more than 30,000 infections.

For over a month, Kerala has been reporting the highest number of cases among all states.

After Kerala, Maharashtra had the most infections on Thursday morning with 5,031 cases.

Other updates

  • India has so far administered 60.38 crore vaccine doses. Of this, 80,40,407 shots were provided on Wednesday alone.
  • The Centre on Wednesday asked states to vaccinate all school teachers against Covid-19 on priority before September 5. India celebrates Teachers Day on that date.
  • National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization’s working group chief Dr NK Arora warned that parents and other family members of school students should get vaccinated against Covid-19, reported the Hindustan Times. He said that it was time for schools to reopen in a phased manner, adding that teachers, non-teaching staff and drivers of vehicles transporting students should also be inoculated.
  • Japan on Thursday stopped the use of 1.63 million doses of Moderna vaccine after they were found to be contaminated. Japan is already struggling with a surge in cases and now stares at a possible shortage of vaccines. Currently, vaccines manufactured by Moderna, Pfizer-Biontech and AstraZeneca are in use in Japan.
  • Globally, Covid-19 has infected more than 21.38 crore people and led to over 44.6 lakh deaths since the beginning of the pandemic in December 2019, according to Johns Hopkins University.