Here are the top updates from Friday:

  1. With more than one crore doses of the coronavirus vaccine being administered to beneficiaries, India recorded the highest single-day inoculation, ANI reported. The total shots given in August has now crossed 15 crore, which is the highest for any month since the inoculation drive began in the middle of January, News18 reported.
  2. India recorded 44,658 new coronavirus cases, pushing the cumulative count of infections in the country to 3,26,03,188 since the pandemic first broke out in January last year. With 496 deaths, the India’s toll rose to 4,36,861. So far, 3,18,21,428 people have recovered from the infection. The number of active cases stood at 3,44,899.
  3. Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan wrote to Kerala and Maharashtra governments, asking them to adopt a five-fold strategy for controlling Covid-19 cases in the two states, ANI reported. Among other things, Bhushan asked the states to set up containment zones and scale up contact tracing of infected patients. Bhushan categorically asked the Maharashtra government to consider imposing local restrictions ahead of Janmashtami and Ganesh Chaturthi festivals, which are widely celebrated in the state.
  4. The Delhi Disaster Management Authority announced that schools in the national Capital will open in a phased manner from September first week.
  5. The Madhya Pradesh government also decided to resume school for Classes 9-12 on all working days, ANI reported, citing Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, So far, classes were being held twice a week. The decision on Classes 1-5 will be taken based on the situation a week later, Chouhan said. 
  6. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan defended his government’s Covid-19 management even as the state recorded more than 30,000 cases for the third straight day. In an article in a weekly magazine of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Vijayan asserted that nobody had died due to lack of oxygen or medical facilities in the state.
  7. Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said that the state will start vaccinating at least five lakh people everyday from September 1, PTI reported.
  8. Around half the people hospitalised with Covid-19 experience at least one persistent symptom of the disease up to 12 months after contracting the infection, PTI reported, citing a study published in medical journal Lancet.
  9. Coronavirus test kit manufactuers in the United States are struggling to boost their production amid a surge in cases in the country, Reuters reported.
  10. Globally, Covid-19 has infected more than 21.49 crore people and led to over 44.79 lakh deaths since the beginning of the pandemic in December 2019, according to Johns Hopkins University.