10.50 pm: Read today’s top updates here.

10.30 pm: Assam reports 2,409 new cases today.

10.16 pm: Rajasthan’s tally rises to 1,05,898 with 1,760 new infections and 14 deaths in last 24 hours, reports ANI citing the health department.

10.14 pm: West Bengal reports 3,227 new cases and 59 deaths, says the state health department.

9.19 pm: ICMR Director General Balram Bhargava says coronavirus reinfection is possible even though it is a “very rare” occurrence, reports PTI. “We have seen that someone gets measles and he is supposed to be protected all his life because he generates certain antibodies, but then we have seen reinfection occurring in measles,” he adds. “Similarly, we can have reinfection with Covid-19 as has been described by the case in Hong Kong and it is not a matter of serious concern.”

9.16 pm: Gujarat registers 1,349 new cases and 17 deaths in the last 24 hours, reports PTI. With this, the state’s tally is now 1,16,345.

9.14 pm: Bihar’s count goes up to 1.61 lakh with 1,575 fresh infections and toll rises to 836 with five more fatalities, reports PTI.

9.11 pm: Turmakuru Rural JD(S) legislator DC Gowrishankar says he has tested positive for Covid-19. “As I had a fever, I underwent COVID test and the report has come positive,” he tweets. “On the advice of Doctors, I’m undergoing treatment at home.”

9.10 pm: Punjab’s tally rises to 84,482 with 2,481 new cases and 90 deaths in the last 24 hours, says the state health department.

8.48 pm: Mumbai alone reports 1,585 new infections and 49 deaths, says the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.

8.46 pm: Delhi records 4,263 fresh cases and 36 more fatalities.

8.42 pm: Karnataka reports 7,576 new cases and 97 deaths. With this, the state’s count is now 4,75,265, including 7,481 fatalities.

8.41 pm: The Railways ministry says 20 pairs of clone trains will start running from September 21 on specific routes, according to ANI. These services will be in addition to Sharmik Special and Special trains.

8.39 pm: Madhya Pradesh’s tally rises to 93,053 with 2,323 fresh infections. The toll in the state is now 1,820 after 29 additional deaths.

8.38 pm: Maharashtra registers 20,482 new cases and 515 deaths, reports ANI citing the state health department.

8.35 pm: Gujarat Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Minister Jayesh Radadiya and BJP MLA from Jamnagar Raghavji Patel confirm that they have tested positive for the disease.

8.34 pm: BJP’s Delhi unit media cell head says 17 people have tested positive in the party office, reports News18.

8.19 pm: Indian Council of Medical Research Director General Balram Bhargava has said that India’s Covid-19 peak was not “huge” due to the lockdown, reports The Indian Express. “US and countries of Europe had a peak, then they came down and there is a second wave occurring there,” he says. “We took learning from that. We distributed the curve in a way that we didn’t have many deaths. It was because we had an effective lockdown. We did not have a huge peak at all.”

8.16 pm: Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu says he has tested positive for Covid-19. “I am asymptomatic and feeling healthy,” he tweets. “However as per SOP [standard operating procedure] and safety of others, I am self isolating myself and request everyone who came in contact with me to adhere to the SOP.”

6.19 pm: Kerala registered 3,215 new coronavirus cases and 12 deaths on Tuesday, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan says, according to ANI.

6.15 pm: The tally of coronavirus cases in Mumbai’s Dharavi locality increased to 2,945 on Tuesday after seven more persons tested positive, the lowest in almost a week, PTI reports.

6.12 pm: Chandigarh registers 347 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, pushing its tally to 8,592, ANI reports. The toll from the disease is 96.

6.09 pm: Union health ministry secretary Rajesh Bhushan dismisses reports about oxygen shortage in the country, ANI reports. “Today’s capacity for production of oxygen is slightly more than 6,900 metric tonne,” he says. “There is no shortage of oxygen. Problems happen when at a facility-level if you do not have inventory management. Each state needs to ensure proper inventory management so that oxygen can be replenished in time.”

4.28 pm: Indian Council of Medical Research Director General Dr Balram Bhargava says they are still studying if plasma therapy helps or not for Covid patients.

4.24 pm: The health ministry says Maharashtra tops the daily average deaths in top five states in the country. “There are 14 states and UTs where the total number of active cases are less than 5,000,” says health ministry secretary Rajesh Bhushan. “There are 18 states and UTs where total active cases are between 5,000-50,000. There has been a decline in the number of deaths in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Delhi is testing much more but it still has a high positivity rate. Same with Andhra Pradesh, where the positivity rate is 12%. The national average is 8% and Maharashtra is 21%.”

3.15 pm: In an interview with PTI, Bill Gates says he hopes that India will roll out a coronavirus vaccine in next year. “It is very likely that roll-out of Covid-19 vaccine will take place in fairly big volume [in India] sometime next year,” he says. “I am quite optimistic that by first quarter of next year, several Covid-19 vaccines will have reached final stage.”

3.08 pm: Three of the six leading coronavirus vaccines will probably work by early next year, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates tells The Times of India in an interview. He adds that India will play a major role in the development as most of the highest volume vaccine manufacturers to have performed well are located in the country.

1.05 pm: Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Ashwini Choubey tells the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday that around 40 lakh people in the country had been kept under surveillance as part of the government’s contact-tracing efforts, PTI reports.

12.48 pm: The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Biosafety Expert Guizhen Wu says coronavirus vaccines being developed in the country may be ready for public use as early as November, Reuters reports. China has four COVID-19 vaccines in the final stage of clinical trials.

12.44 pm: South Korea Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun says the country will secure early supply of coronavirus vaccines for 60% of its population, Reuters reports.

12.43 pm: The Asian Development Bank says that India’s economy will contract by 9% in the 2020-’21 financial year.

Read here: Indian economy will contract by 9% in 2020-’21, says Asian Development Bank

12.40 pm: Mizoram Health Secretary H Lalengmawia tests positive for the coronavirus, PTI reports.

12.37 pm: Rajasthan’s tally rises to 1,04,937 on Tuesday as it reports 799 new cases. Seven more deaths push the state’s toll to 1,257.

12.34 pm: Odisha records 3,645 new cases and eight deaths in the last 24 hours, ANI reports. Its tally rises to 1,58,650 and the toll reaches 645.

12.32 pm: Union health minister Harsh Vardhan tells the Rajya Sabha that India’s death rate is 1.67% while the recovery rate is 77.65%.

11.08 am: China’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention chief Guizhen Wu says coronavirus vaccines developed in the country may be ready for use by the general public as early as November, reports Reuters. Four vaccines are in the final stage of clinical trials in China.

11.05 am: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi attacks the Narendra Modi government for informing the Parliament that there is no data available on the number of migrant workers who lost their lives during an exodus that was sparked when a countrywide lockdown was suddenly enforced to contain the coronavirus in March.

“The Modi government does not know how many migrants died during lockdown and how many lost jobs,” Gandhi tweets. “If you didn’t count... did nobody die? The sad part is that the government does not care about the loss of lives. The world saw them dying... Modi government was unaware.”

11 am: Thane records 1,739 new coronavirus cases on Monday, taking the total count of infections in the Maharashtra district to 1,47,841, according to PTI.

9.39 am: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal told the Assembly on Monday that the Capital is doing the maximum number of tests globally, according to PTI.

“In Delhi, 3,057 COVID-19 tests are conducted per day per million [10 lakh] population, he said. “In the UK [United Kingdom], around 3,000 tests are conducted per million population, 1,388 in the USA, 2,311 in Russia, and 8,58 in Peru. In India, the figure is 819 tests per day per million. So, Delhi is conducting the highest number of tests in the whole world.”

9.28 am: India’s tally rises to 49,30,236 as it reports 83,809 new cases in the last 24 hours. The toll rises by 1,054 to 80,776.

Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

9.20 am: The Punjab police charge state Bharatiya Janata Party President Ashwani Sharma and over 40 others for holding a political gathering in Pathankot, PTI reports.

9.16 am: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee says organising Durga Puja festivities this year will be a “big challenge” and suggests the setting up of open pandals for safety, PTI reports.

9.14 am: The United Arab Emirates granted emergency approval for use of a coronavirus vaccine still under trial to health workers, Reuters reported on Monday.

9.11 am: Aam Aadmi Party MLA Parmila Toka, whose rapid antigen test report for COVID-19 had come out negative, attended the proceedings of the Delhi Assembly’s special session on Monday but left the House soon after their RT-PCR [Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction] report confirmed the infection, according to PTI.

8.50 am: India has so far tested 5,83,12,273 samples, says ICMR. On Monday alone, 10,72,845 samples were tested.

8.40 am: Israel is set to impose a second national lockdown from Friday as coronavirus cases continue to rise in the country, BBC reports. It has so far reported 1,108 deaths and over 1,53,000 infections. Israel is now reporting around 4,000 new infections every day.

The new lockdown would last at least three weeks. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged that it would “exact a heavy price on us all”.

8.30 am: The World Health Organization has warned European countries of a rise in cases and deaths in upcoming months, AFP reports. “It’s going to get tougher. In October, November, we are going to see more mortality,” WHO Europe Director Hans Kluge says. “Covid-19 has brought to light the weaknesses and strengths of European society. It has bluntly revealed the reality of our health systems.”

8.20 am: Maharashtra doctors registered with the Indian Medical Association have threatened to go on a strike if their demands are not met, The Indian Express reports. Doctors are protesting against the “unaffordable rates forced by the state government” for Covid hospitals, and have alleged that small and medium-sized hospitals cannot meet their expenses.

8.10 am: The CEO of the Serum Institute in Pune, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, says that it will take four to five years for everyone on the planet to get the coronavirus vaccine, reports Financial Times. According to Adar Poonawalla, the production capacity of pharmaceutical companies does not match the vaccination timeline given by some world leaders.

“I know the world wants to be optimistic on it . . . [but] I have not heard of anyone coming even close to that [level] right now,” he says. Poonawalla estimates that around 15 billion doses of the vaccine will be needed, as it will be a two-shot vaccine.

“I still don’t see a proper plan on paper to do that [in India] beyond 400m doses,” he says. “You don’t want a situation with the vaccine where you have capacity for your country but you can’t consume it.”

The Serum Institute has been conducting clinical trials of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which appears to be the first that might be available to people in 2021. Trials of the Oxford vaccine, as it is otherwise called, were temporarily put on hold after one of the volunteers fell ill last week.

8 am: Globally, the coronavirus has infected more than 2.91 crore people and killed 9,26,923 people, according to the Johns Hopkins University. The number of worldwide recoveries has crossed 1.97 crore.

7.50 am: Here are Monday’s top coronavirus updates:

  • India reported 92,071 new coronavirus cases on Monday, taking its tally to 48,46,428. The country’s toll rose by 1,136 to 79,722. As many as 37,80,108 people have recovered from the infection. India’s recovery rate rose to 78%, while the death rate fell to 1.6%.
  • The World Health Organization reported a record rise in global coronavirus cases on Sunday with the total rising by 3,07,930 over 24 hours. The biggest rise in infections were reported from India, the United States and Brazil, according to the agency’s website.
  • The Parliament’s Monsoon Session began with strict safety protocols in place on Monday. This included different timings for Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha and staggered seating arrangements to ensure physical distancing. Several members of Parliament, however, tested positive for the coronavirus.
  • Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia also tested positive on Monday. He said he will now isolate himself. Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain, meanwhile, said the government expects the surge in coronavirus cases in the Capital to ease within 10-15 days. The Capital reported more than 4,000 cases on Sunday, taking its tally to 2,18,304. Twenty-nine more deaths pushed the Capital’s toll to 4,744.
  • Former Chhattisgarh minister and Congress leader Chanesh Ram Rathiya died of the coronavirus. He was 78.
  • Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan told Parliament that India has been able to contain its coronavirus cases and deaths. “With our endeavor to manage Covid-19 through a whole of government and whole of society approach, India has been able to limit its cases to 3,328 cases per million [10 lakh] and deaths to 55 per million population, respectively , which is one of the lowest in the world as compared to similarly affected countries,” he said.
  • The Centre on Monday informed Parliament that there is no data available on the number of migrant workers who lost their lives during an exodus that was sparked due to the countrywide lockdown enforced to contain the coronavirus. The response was given during the first day of the Monsoon Session in Lok Sabha.
  • United States President Donald Trump claimed that his country was way ahead of India in terms of coronavirus testing and that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had praised him for ramping up testing capacity amid the escalating health crisis. The US and India are the world’s two worst coronavirus-hit countries.