Seven States/Union Territories (UTs)s, including Uttarakhand, Ladakh, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh, have not reported any new COVID-19 cases in last 24 hours, while 86.3% of the new cases are from five States, with Maharashtra reporting the highest of 6,971, followed by Kerala (4,070) and Tamil Nadu (452), as per data released by the Union Health Ministry on Monday.
It said that 19 States/UTs have not reported any COVID-19 deaths in the last 24 hours. These include — Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Odisha, Goa, Chandigarh, Assam, Manipur, Sikkim and Lakshadweep. The country reported 83 deaths in the last 24 hours and five States accounted for 78.31% of them. Maharashtra saw the maximum of 35, while Kerala reported 15 deaths.
“India has on Monday morning registered a record in the number of COVID-19 cumulative tests. It has crossed the 21.15 crore [21,15,51,746] tests, with 6,20,216 tests being conducted in the last 24 hours,’’ said the Ministry.
Private sector in vaccination
Stressing that it was essential to allow the participation of the private sector in COVID-19 vaccination, past president of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) Ravi Wankhedkar said, “The private sector is providing health services to nearly 70% of the population. For the vaccination programme to be effective and successful in a vast country like India, the involvement of the private sector is essential.’’
“Today, the government sector is able to vaccinate nearly 80 lakh persons in a month. At this rate, it will take 10 years to vaccinate the entire 130 crore population. Even to achieve herd immunity, we need to vaccinate 70% of the population which comes to 91 crore persons. Even in other vaccination drives polio etc the private sector has been actively participating,’’ he noted.
