Corona Updates You Must Track: India Posts 16,922 New Cases In 24 Hours, Oxford Vaccine In Last Leg of Trials

India cases and toll: In yet another biggest single-day surge, India reported 16,922 new cases of coronavirus in the last 24 hours. A total of 418 people lost their lives due to the virus during the period. With this, India’s coronavirus count stood at 4,73,105 cases on Thursday morning with 1,86,514 active cases, 2,71,696 recoveries and 14,894 deaths, according to the data provided by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Delhi overtakes Mumbai: The national capital’s COVID-19 case count rose to 70,390, going past Mumbai which has so far reported 69,528 confirmed cases. Delhi added 3,788 new cases of coronavirus disease on Tuesday while Mumbai reported 1,118 cases. Delhi has 26,588 active cases while 41,437 people have recovered and 2,365 succumbed to the illness. Sixty-four people died due to the infection in the last 24 hours.

Other states with rising number of cases: While Delhi, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu continue to grab headlines as the worst-hit states by the pandemic in India, southern states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have been reporting a steady rise in the number of coronavirus cases too. Andhra Pradesh has already crossed the 10,000-mark with 5,428 active cases, 4,779 recoveries and 124 deaths. Neighbour Telangana has reported 5,858 active cases, 4,361 recoveries and 225 deaths. The state’s coronavirus count is at 10,444 cases.

COVID Tracker. Source: Twitter/@COVIDNewsByMIB

A vaccine for coronavirus: In a ray of hope, Oxford University’s vaccine against COVID-19, which has been licensed to British-Swedish biopharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca, has become the first to enter the final stages of clinical trial. According to a Hindustan Times report, the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine will be administered to 10,260 adults and children in the next stage. 

In India, Ramdev’s Patanjali has launched an ayurvedic cure called ‘Coronil’ to treat coronavirus. The AYUSH Ministry, however, said it cannot validate the claims made by Patanjali and asked the company to stop advertising the product as of now.

Global corona update: The global tally for COVID-19 has breached the 95-lakh mark with 95,27,125 cases till Thursday morning, according to worldometer, a website that tracks coronavirus data globally. The number of recoveries is at 51,75,406 cases while 4,84,972 people have succumbed to the coronavirus disease across the world. The US, leading the global count, has registered 24,62,554 COVID-19 cases with 1,24,281 deaths. It is followed by Brazil, which has reported 11,92,474 confirmed coronavirus cases and 53,874 deaths so far. South American country Bolivia is also witnessing a spike in cases—it has 27,487 total confirmed cases of coronavirus with 876 deaths.