India Coronavirus Update: Big Jump In Daily Covid Deaths (2,020) As Madhya Pradesh Revises Data

India has witnessed a drop in Covid cases over the last few weeks.

Highlights

Madhya Pradesh is the third state to revise the Covid death count
India logged 31,443 new cases, lowest daily rise in four months
Vaccine shortage continues to remain a concern for several states

New Delhi: Amid warnings over a third wave, India saw a big jump in daily Covid deaths as Madhya Pradesh revised its official data and logged 1,478 deaths, taking India's count to 2,020. But the country's daily rise in fresh cases is the lowest in four months.

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Madhya Pradesh is the third state after Maharashtra and Bihar that has revised its Covid death count. The state's fresh count includes the deaths during the second wave, till June 30, officials have said. India has been recording less than 2,000 deaths every day for nearly three weeks now.
India logged 31,443 new cases in last 24 hours, which is the lowest daily rise in 118 days, the Health Ministry said. The country's active caseload currently stands at 4,31,315, which is the lowest in 109 days, and constitutes of 1.4 per cent of the total cases (nearly 3.09 crore). 4,10,784 people have died so far.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said: "We have to monitor every variant very closely. Prevention and treatment is crucial." Stressing that "the third wave won't come on its own," he added: "It's sad that tourism sector has been affected. But gathering of huge crowds - where people are not wearing masks - in hill stations is not right".
In a sharp reminder on not letting the guards down, the Indian Medical Association on Monday warned that the third wave of Covid is "imminent", and tourism and pilgrimage can wait. "With the global evidence available and the history of any pandemics, the third wave is inevitable and imminent," the IMA said.
Delhi has run out of Covishield, one of the two major vaccines being rolled out nationwide, the AAP government said on Monday. Many government vaccine centres will stay shut today.
The WHO's chief scientist, Soumya Swaminathan, on Monday warned against the mixing of vaccine doses. "It's a little bit of a dangerous trend here. We are in a data-free, evidence-free zone as far as mix and match," Dr Swaminathan told an online briefing, news agency Reuters reported.
India has seen a dip in average daily vaccination since June 21 when the new policy - ensuring free vaccination to all - came into effect, the government data shows. According to data available on the CoWIN platform, an average of 61.14 lakh doses of COVID-19 vaccine were administered daily in the week from June 21-27 which dropped to 41.92 lakh doses daily in the subsequent week from June 28-July 4, news agency PTI reported.
Kerala and Maharashtra have seen an increasing 'R' factor, which indicates how many people one person can infect, a study by scientists from Chennai's Institute of Mathematical Science suggests.
India has so far given 39.46 crore vaccine doses. The government aims to vaccinate 108 crore adults by the end of this year.
More than 39.46 crore vaccine doses have been provided to states "through all sources and a further 12,00,000 doses are in the pipeline," the government said this morning. "More than 1.91 crore (1,91,55,630) balance and unutilised Covid vaccine doses are still available with the states, union territories, and private hospitals to be administered," the Health Ministry said.