India on Monday recorded 30,941 new cases in the last 24 hours, taking the country’s total cases to 3,27,68,880 since the pandemic broke out in January last year, government data showed. The new cases are 27.8% lower than Monday’s count of 42,909 infections.

The toll rose by 350 to 4,38,560. The active caseload rose to 3,70,640. As many as 3,19,59,680 people have recovered from the disease so far.

The Delta variant of the coronavirus was found in 80% of the total Covid-19 samples that were sent from Tamil Nadu for whole genome sequencing tests, state Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan said, reported The Hindu.

“We sent a total of 3,417 samples for genomic sequencing from December until now,” the health minister added. “Of this, we have received the results for 2,693 samples. Eighty percent of these samples, or 2,150, had the Delta variant of Covid-19.”

Credit: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Other updates

  1. Karnataka has made it compulsory to complete one week of institutional quarantine for all passengers from Kerala as the latter has been recording a high Covid-19 positivity rate, reported The Hindu.
  2. About 200 of the over 87,500 containment zones that were set up in Delhi during the course of the pandemic currently remain in place, according to The Hindu.
  3. On Monday, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maharashtra government prohibited all public gatherings for the Dahi Handi festival on Tuesday amid a jump in Covid-19 cases in the state, reported the Hindustan Times.
  4. The number Covid-19 infections in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region has seen a marginal rise over the last 15 days. The region has been averaging 250 new infections every day since the middle of August. The city’s average has gone up to 350 in the past five days, according to the Hindustan Times.
  5. The Maharashtra unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party launched a protest against the Thackeray government for not allowing temples in the state to reopen, according to The Hindu. The party held demonstrations in Ahmednagar, Pune, Mumbai, Aurangabad, Nashik, Nagpur and Solapur districts. The protestors were reportedly seen violating Covid norms.

Global updates

  1. The European Union will advise its member countries to reimpose travel restrictions for travellers from the United States, three officials said, according to The New York Times.
  2. The United States’ Department of Education has started an investigation against five states that have prohibited schools from making masks compulsory, reported Reuters.
  3. Indigenous communities in Australia have accused the government of not ensuring that they are protected against the coronavirus, reported BBC. The communities have been reporting a rise in Covid infections recently.
  4. Covid-19 has infected more than 21.70 crore people and led to over 45 lakh deaths since the beginning of the pandemic in December 2019, according to Johns Hopkins University.