India Coronavirus Dispatch: Fatalities mount to a record 3,980

Centre drafts plan to counter bad press, jabs for 18-44 group yet to pick up pace, and more-news relevant to India's fight against Covid-19

Over 410,000 fresh cases reported

India reported 412,262 fresh coronavirus infections on Thursday, taking the cumulative caseload to 21 million, according to central health ministry data. The country saw 3,980 deaths due to the pandemic, taking the death toll to 230,168. This is the biggest daily jump in fatalities so far. The active caseload is at 3.5 million, while the total recoveries have surged to 17.2 million. As many as 162 million shots have been administered since the nationwide inoculation programme kicked off on January 16. Of these, 1.9 million were given on Wednesday. Read more here

Not tracking new Covid variants could worsen the crisis

While the good news is that existing vaccines are effective against the new virus strain that is believed to be behind the surge in Covid cases, the bad news is that it won't be the only new version of the virus to emerge from an outbreak of this size, a report in Bloomberg said. This highlights the urgency of mapping other possible variants that may be circulating through India. As infections rise by 300,000 cases for two weeks in a row, the country's ability to track new mutations emerging from this outbreak is becoming a growing concern for scientists, the report said. Read more here

Centre drafts plan to counter bad press

The Modi government is working on strategies to negate criticism and bad press it has been getting as India reels from a massive surge in Covid cases, while a severe shortage of hospital beds and medical oxygen compounds the crisis, a report in ThePrint said citing sources. Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Minister Prakash Javadekar has been holding video conferences daily with senior government officials to discuss ways to counter bad press against the government, the report said. Read more here

Vaccination in 18-44-year group yet to pick up the pace

Covid-19 vaccination among young adults in the 18-44 years category has not picked up, with just 700,000 individuals having received their first dose in five days across just 12 states, a report in The Indian Express said. The states that have begun vaccinating adults between the age group of 18 and 44 years are Chhattisgarh (1,026), Delhi (82,000), Gujarat (161,625), Jammu and Kashmir (10,885), Haryana (99,680), Karnataka (3,840), Maharashtra (111,621), Odisha (13,768), Punjab (908), Rajasthan (130,071), Tamil Nadu (4,577) and UP (51,284). Read here

Bengaluru staring at new variant, fear medics; scientists say no evidence

Deaths among a number of people due to lung failure— despite RT-PCR and rapid antigen tests being negative for Covid— during the second wave in Karnataka, has raised concerns among some doctors who suspect these cases are linked to new variants of the virus even as scientists reject the theory, a report in The Indian Express said. Read more here.