India on Monday morning recorded 30,256 new coronavirus cases, pushing the infection tally in the country to 3,34,78,419 since the pandemic broke out in January last year. The new cases are 1.68% fewer than Sunday’s count of 30,773 infections.

With 295 deaths, the toll climbed to 4,45,133. The active cases have declined to 3,18,181, making up 0.95% of the total infections. This is the lowest active cases percentage since March last year, according to a Union health ministry statement. The number of active cases is also the lowest in 183 days, the statement said.

So far, India has administered 80,85,68,144 Covid-19 vaccine doses. On Sunday alone, the country administered 37,78,296 shots.

Source: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare

Other updates

  • Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday took a dig at the government’s single-day record of administering over 2.5 crore doses in a special push to mark the birthday of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Congress leader said that the “event was over”. In a tweet, Gandhi also shared a graph showing a rise in vaccinations on September 17 followed by a steep decline.      
  • The World Health Organization’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization will meet next month to make its recommendation on the emergency use listing of Bharat Biotech’s coronavirus vaccine, Covaxin, PTI reported.
  • Kerala Chief Secretary VP Joy said that stringent lockdown restrictions will be imposed in parts of the states where the Weekly Infection Population Ratio for Covid-19 was higher than 10%, reported PTI. The Weekly Infection Population Ratio is the total number of coronavirus cases reported in a week multiplied by 1,000 and divided by the total population of local bodies.
  • The United Kingdom government said that travellers from India, who have received both doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine – made and sold as Covishield in India – will be considered “unvaccinated”, the Hindustan Times reported. The passengers will have to undergo 10-day quarantine from October 4.

Global updates

  • A panel of United States’ medical experts advising the government on Covid-19 voted in favor of administering booster shots of Pfizer vaccine to residents aged 65 and above as well as people who are the high risk of developing severe coronavirus disease, reported AFP.
  • New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland, will remain in a lockdown for two more weeks, AP reported. However, some restrictions will be eased from Tuesday. Auckland has been in lockdown for over month as New Zealand adopted a zero-tolerance approach to the eliminate the coronavirus. The country has been seeing 20 new local cases every day. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that the lockdown had been effective as there was no widespread undetected transmission.
  • Cuba on Sunday became the first country in the world to start mass vaccination of kids as young two years old against Covid-19, ANI reported. Since the coronavirus outbreak in Cuba, 1.17 lakh children have tested positive with 10 deaths occurring within the last two months. The country will now use indigenously-developed vaccines which do not have a World Health Organization approval yet.
  • Globally, the coronavirus has infected over 22.85 crore people and caused more than 46.91 lakh deaths since the pandemic broke out in December 2019, according to Johns Hopkins University.