1. India on Sunday recorded 50,040 new coronavirus cases, pushing the infection tally in the country to 3,02,33,183 since the pandemic broke out in January last year. The toll climbed to 3,95,751 after 1,258 citizens died of the infection in the last 24 hours.
  2. Kerala reported 10,905 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours, taking the tally in the state to 28,88,894. Kerala was the only state to have added more than 10,000 cases to the country’s tally on Sunday. The toll rose by 62 to 12,879. The positivity rate, which is the percentage of people who test positive for the virus of those overall who have been tested, jumped to 10.49%.
  3. Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged Indians to overcome vaccine hesitancy and get inoculated against the coronavirus. He was addressing the country in his monthly “Mann ki Baat” radio programme. Meanwhile, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi criticised the Centre for the slow pace of vaccination in the country, while taking a swipe at Modi’s programme.
  4. A study conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research has shown that if a third wave of the coronavirus hits India, it is likely to come late, the head of a government working group said. “We have a window period of six to eight months [before third wave] to immunise everybody in the country,” said NK Arora, chairperson of India’s Covid-19 Working Group of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation.
  5. Uttar Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party working committee member Ram Iqbal Singh criticised the Adityanath government, claiming that at least 10 people died in every village during the second wave of the pandemic as no lessons were learnt from the first one, PTI reported.
  6. The Centre told the Supreme Court that a coronavirus vaccine developed by Indian pharmaceutical company Zydus Cadila will soon be available for children aged 12-18 years.
  7. Union minister DV Sadananda Gowda urged Hyderabad-based Biological-E to fast track the availability of their Covid-19 vaccine. On June 3, the Centre had finalised arrangements with vaccine manufacturer to reserve 30 crore doses.
  8. The finance ministry clarified that it has not passed any order to resume payment of dearness allowance to central government employees and dearness relief to pensioners from July. In April last year, the government had put on hold three installments of dearness allowance and dearness relief in view of the coronavirus pandemic.
  9. AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford began new trials to test a modified vaccine against the Beta variant of the virus, which was first detected in South Africa, AFP reported. “Testing booster doses of existing vaccines and new variant vaccines is important to ensure we are best prepared to stay ahead of the pandemic coronavirus, should their use be needed,” said Andrew Pollard, chief investigator and director of the Oxford Vaccine Group at the University of Oxford.
  10. Globally, the coronavirus disease has infected over 18.07 crore people and killed more than 39.15 lakh since the pandemic broke out in December 2019, according to Johns Hopkins University.