Coronavirus India Highlights: India Reports 1,761 New COVID-19 Cases

According to the NCOC, the total number of confirmed cases has increased to 1,521,888, including 1,475,759 recoveries in the country, Xinhua reported.

Over the last 24 hours, one person succumbed to the disease, taking the total number of coronavirus deaths to 30,329, showed the NCOC data.

Nine patients recovered from the disease, taking the overall recoveries to 27,934.

The number of active cases stands at 40 - 38 in Leh district and two in Kargil district.

No Covid-related death was reported in the Union Territory, which has so far recorded 228 fatalities linked to the pandemic since its outbreak.

Of the total fatalities, Leh accounted for the highest 168 deaths followed by 60 in Kargil.

The solitary infection reported from the Puducherry region was detected at the end of the examination of 401 samples and took the overall tally to 1,65,759.

No fresh fatality was reported from any of the four regions-Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam and the death count remained at 1,962.

Four patients recovered and were discharged during the last 24 hours ending 10 AM Sunday and the overall recoveries climbed to 1,63,780.

The new cases as of Saturday include 17 confirmed local infections and 492 that are asymptomatic, Wu Jinglei, director of the Shanghai Heath Commission, said at a press conference on Sunday.

Wu called for increased effort to scale up testing, which has been effective in identifying cases and helping block further transmission. China has allowed the use of rapid antigen tests kits to ease the demand from people to be diagnosed.

Expressing concern over the misinformation brewing around the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Saturday said that several factors, including misinformation, are fueling the recent spike in cases across the world.

WHO's COVID-19 Technical Lead Maria Van Kerkhove pointed out that misinformation such as the pandemic is over, Omicron is mild and that it is the last variant of COVID-19, are causing a lot of confusion and allowing the virus to thrive.

"We have huge amounts of misinformation that's out there. The misinformation that Omicron is mild. Misinformation that the pandemic is over. Misinformation that this is the last variant that we will have to deal with. This is really causing a lot of confusion," Ms Kerkhove said.

As many as 64,179 people have recuperated from the disease thus far in the state including, three on Saturday.

The COVID-19 death toll in the northeastern state remained at 296, as no fresh fatality was reported in the last 24 hours.

The fresh coronavirus case was detected from Lohit district.

Of the new local infections, 1,191 were reported in the province of Jilin, 158 in Fujian, 51 in Shandong, 51 in Guangdong, and 39 in Liaoning respectively, Xinhua reported.

The rest of the cases were reported in 15 other provincial-level regions, including Gansu and Tianjin, as per Xinhua.

A total of 81 imported COVID-19 cases were reported Saturday, said the commission's report.

Meanwhile, China's zero-COVID policy is pushing cash-strapped local governments to the brink amid rising health care costs and efforts to control debt.

The caseload remained unchanged at 10,029 as no new case was registered. The toll stood at 129.

A total of 9,896 people have recovered from the disease so far, it said.

As nobody succumbed to the infection in the district during the day, the death count remained unchanged at 11,879.

Thane's COVID-19 mortality rate is 1.67 per cent.

Amid a resurgence of Covid cases across Southeast Asia and Europe, the government on Thursday warned states not to let their guard down and advised them to continue focus on the five-fold strategy of "test, track, treat, follow Covid-appropriate behaviour and vaccinate" while resuming economic and social activities in their jurisdiction.

Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan, in his letter to all states and union territories, also asked them to ensure adequate testing of samples to ensure timely detection of new variants and also to motivate people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

"States should also ensure that adequate number of samples are submitted to INSACOG network through Sentinel sites as per the protocol issued by National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), which is the Nodal Agency for INSACOG, to ensure timely detection of new variants while maintaining adequate testing as per the protocols for testing laid by ICMR. Effective surveillance by monitoring of emerging clusters of new cases, if any, testing as per norms and monitoring of ILI and SARI cases shall be taken up on a continued basis to ensure no early warning signals are missed and spread of infection can be controlled," Mr Bhushan said in the letter.