Here are the top 10 updates on coronavirus in India:
The daily positivity rate - number of positive cases identified per hundred - stands at 1.99 per cent, less than 3 per cent for 25 consecutive days.
The active cases have declined to 4,30,422 and comprise 1.39 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate stands at 97.28 per cent, the data showed. It said that a decrease of 1,619 has been recorded in the number of active cases in the span of 24 hours.
The Ministry said 19,55,910 tests were conducted on Thursday, taking the total cumulative tests conducted so far for detection of COVID-19 in the country to 44,00,23,239.
Maharashtra, which leads the states with the maximum number of cases in the country, added 8,010 cases over a 24-hour period. The fresh cases took the number of infections to over 61.89 lakh and 170 deaths took the cumulative death count to 1,26,560.
Kerala with 13,773 cases leads the states in most number of Covid cases in a day. It is followed by Maharashtra (8,010), Tamil Nadu (2,405) and Karnataka (1,977).
Assam leads the northeastern states with 1,992 cases in a day and 27 deaths, followed by Manipur with 1,039 cases and 14 deaths.
The third wave of Covid is likely to hit the country at the end of August but may not be as devastating as the second wave, Dr Samiran Panda, Head of Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases at the Indian Council of Medical Research, has told NDTV in an exclusive interview. Earlier this week, the top doctors' body in the country, the Indian Medical Association, said the third wave is "inevitable and imminent".
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has said there is no plan to resume offline classes in Delhi schools as yet. He said a third wave of Covid infections is imminent and the government is not going to risk the health of children.
The World Health Organization (WHO) warned Thursday that "more dangerous" variants of COVID-19 could tear across the world as global infections soared to half a million daily, largely driven by the virulent Delta strain.
The near-term prospects for the Indian economy have brightened with the tapering of the second wave as well as aggressive vaccination push, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has observed in its monthly bulletin for July 2021, while commenting on the overall state of the economy.
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