COVID-19: India reports 18,166 Fresh Cases in last 24 hrs; Kerala adds 7,000 deaths

As the country continues to fight the deadly Coronavirus, India on Saturday, October 9, reported 18,166 fresh COVID cases with 23,624 recoveries and 214 deaths in the past 24 hours. According to Union Health Ministry data, out of the total infections, the active cases account for 0.68 per cent, the lowest since March 2020. Currently, there are 2,30,971 active cases in the county. Meanwhile, Kerala has recorded 9,470 COVID cases and 101 deaths yesterday, to which the state has added 7,000 uncounted deaths that occurred before hospitals uploaded data of such fatalities online before June 2021.

To date, 3,32,71,915 patients have recovered from COVID-19 as India’s recovery rate stands at 97.99 per cent. According to Health Ministry's data, the daily positivity rate stands at 1.42 per cent that has been less than 3 per cent for the past 34 days. While the weekly positivity rate stands at 1.57 per cent which has been below 3 per cent for the last 100 days. 

India's COVID vaccination drive

To date, India has administered a total of 94,70,10,175 COVID vaccine doses across 22,619 vaccination sites. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare announced on September 21 that states and union territories have received over 80.13 crores of COVID-19 vaccine doses, with more than 4.52 crore balance and unused doses still available. Earlier on September 17, India administered over 2.5 crore vaccine doses against the Coronavirus. 

According to the ANI report, the government sources have confirmed that India will have over 25 crore doses of vaccines in October, including only Covaxin and Covishield, which will further be used for a large-scale inoculation across the country. And so, the Serum Institute of India (SII) has targetted to supply about 21.50 crore doses this month. This is considered a significant announcement as the Adar Poonawalla-owned SII since the beginning of India's vaccination drive has supplied 78 crore doses of its Covishield. 

However, India braces itself for the festive season, which saw a rise in the number of cases last year. Even in Kerala, the cases have remained extremely high after the Onam season and therefore, the authorities across all the major states have issued guidelines to control the crowd. While AIIMS director Dr Randeep Guleria has urged all citizens, especially children, to remain "alert and vigilant" against the COVID-19 infection. Dr Guleria said, "As we know that children mostly have mild diseases. So, due to the limited supply of vaccination, we are prioritising those people who can have severe disease." He further informed that children will be provided with the COVID jab very soon as it is the only way to curb the infection spread.