Here are the updates from Wednesday:

  1. Mumbai recorded 34 deaths, the lowest since April 13, The Indian Express reported. The city recorded 1,362 new Covid-19 cases. Maharashtra, meanwhile, registered 24,752 new cases and 453 deaths, PTI reported. The state’s tally of cases rose to 56,50,907, while the toll is 91,341.
  2. India reported 2.08 lakh new cases in the last 24 hours, taking the overall tally past 2.71 crore since the pandemic first broke out in January 2020. The toll rose by 4,157 to 3,11,388, while the active caseload declined by over 91,000 to 24,95,591.
  3. The Union health ministry said in its revised protocol for clinical management of Covid-19 that the majority of transmission is believed to happen through the “airborne route” and droplets released when the infected person coughs, sneezes or talks.
  4. The Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh governments dismissed Union health ministry data that showed they were the top wasters of coronavirus vaccine doses, amid acute shortages in the country. The Centre’s data, released on Tuesday, showed, that Jharkhand wasted 37.3% doses, Chhattisgarh 30.2%, Tamil Nadu 15.5%, Jammu and Kashmir 10.8% and Madhya Pradesh 10.7%.
  5. The Indian Medical Association on Wednesday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling for an end to yoga guru Ramdev’s “misinformation campaign” against coronavirus vaccines and demanding action against him under the sedition law. The IMA”s Uttarakhand unit sent a defamation notice on Tuesday to Ramdev for his remarks about allopathic medicine.
  6. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that currently there were around 620 cases of mucormycosis, or “black fungus” – a post-Covid complication – in the national Capital. He also said that there was a shortage of injections of the Amphotericin-B, the drug used to treat the disease. Meanwhile, Kejriwal also questioned India’s Covid vaccine plan.
  7. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said vaccine is “absolutely important” to save lives and defeat the pandemic. His comments come at a time when several states in the country continue to face shortages of coronavirus shots. He added that India needed to have a better understanding of the pandemic to strengthen measures.
  8. As many as 20 villagers in Uttar Pradesh’s Siddharthnagar district were administered one dose of Covishield and a second dose of Covaxin during vaccinations against Covid-19. The beneficiaries have not suffered any adverse reactions after receiving the mixed doses so far.
  9. The Lancet Citizens’ Commission on Reimagining India’s Health System suggested eight urgent measures for the Centre and state governments as a response to the Covid-19 surge in the country.
  10. The coronavirus has now infected over 16.79 crore people and killed over 34.88 lakh in the world since the pandemic broke out in December 2019, according to Johns Hopkins University.