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Total active cases declined further to 3,78,909 as almost 36,600 people recovered in the last 24 hours. With this, India's overall recoveries have crossed 92 lakh.
Coronavirus cases in India have been declining consistently since the mid-September surge, the health ministry said, adding that active cases have gone down from 10 lakh on September 18 to 9 lakh on October 8, 8 lakh on October 16, 7 lakh on October 22, 6 lakh on October 29, 5 lakh on November 10 and 4 lakh on December 6.
Kerala (5,032), Maharashtra (4,026), Delhi (3,188), West Bengal (2,941) and Rajasthan (1,604) continued to log the highest daily cases.
All these states, barring Rajasthan, also accounted for the highest daily deaths in the last 24 hours. Punjab replaced Rajasthan in the fifth spot with 30 fatalities. Delhi logged the highest deaths at 57. But, this was fewest people who died of COVID-19 in Delhi since the beginning of November, a month when the city recorded almost 2,600 deaths.
Amid the third wave of infections in Delhi, the positivity rate has fallen to 3 per cent on Monday from almost 5 per cent last Thursday.
Issues in the lungs and kidneys are the most common Covid-related complications, a large study, now published, of COVID-19 patients in the United States confirms. As per the study, the absolute risk of someone with Covid having serious conditions was 27.6 per cent for pneumonia, 22.6 per cent for respiratory failure, 11.8 per cent for kidney failure and 10.4 per cent for sepsis or systemic inflammation.
With three vaccines candidates from Oxford, Pfizer and Bharat Biotech under active consideration for emergency use in India, government has said its existing cold chain facilities are capable of storing the first shipment of nearly three crore novel coronavirus vaccines that have been earmarked for frontline healthcare and medical workers.
According to a study, the Oxford vaccine, which is being produced in the Serum Institute of India, was successful in preventing Covid-19 illness in a majority of those who are infected by the virus, but showed only a limited ability to stop transmission of the coronavirus.
The Serum Institute of India is close to signing a supply contract with the Centre and is likely to fix prices at Rs 250 per dose of the vaccine. Its Chief Executive Officer Adar Poonawalla had said Serum will first focus on supplying the vaccine to Indians before distributing it to other countries.
Outgoing US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that prioritises Americans' access to COVID-19 vaccines before the US potentially begins helping other nations. If necessary, Trump said, he is ready to invoke the Defence Production Act.
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