COVID: India reports 22,842 fresh cases in 24 hours; Kerala records 13,217 cases

As the country continues to fight the deadly Coronavirus infections, India on Sunday, October 3, has reported 22,842 fresh COVID cases with 25,930 recoveries and 244 deaths in the past 24 hours. According to Union Health Ministry data, out of the total infections, the active cases account for 0.80 per cent, the lowest since March 2020. Currently, there are 2,70,557 active cases in the county. Meanwhile, Kerala has recorded 13,217 COVID cases and 121 deaths yesterday.

To date, 3,30,94,529 patients have recovered from COVID-19 as India’s recovery rate stands at 97.87 per cent. According to Health Ministry's data, the daily positivity rate stands at 1.80 per cent that has been less than 3 per cent for the past 34 days. While the weekly positivity rate stands at 1.66 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 90,47,93,165 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. In a major milestone achievement, India administered over 2.5 crore vaccine doses against Coronavirus on September 17.

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. 

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. 

(Image: PTI/Pixabay)