Maharashtra reported the highest daily new COVID cases at 13,659 (almost 60% of the daily new cases) with the country reporting 22,854 new cases in the last 24 hours, a release issued by the Health Ministry said on Thursday. Maharashtra is followed by Kerala with 2,475 cases while Punjab reported 1,393 new cases.
India has reported 126 deaths in the last 24 hours. Six States account for 82.54% of these deaths. Maharashtra again saw the maximum casualties at 54, followed by Punjab with 17 and Kerala with 14.
“Maharashtra, Kerala, Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu continue to report a high number of COVID-19 daily new cases. They account for 85.91% of the new cases reported in the past 24 hours,” added the release.
The Ministry did not comment on Denmark, Norway and Iceland temporarily suspending the use of AstraZeneca's vaccine over concerns of patients developing post-jab blood clots.
Giving details of the vaccination done so far the Ministry noted that the cumulative number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the country has crossed 2.60 crore on Thursday. A total of 2,60,73,517 vaccine doses have been given, as per the provisional report till 7 p.m. on March 11.
These include 72,16,759 Health Care Workers (HCWs) who have taken the first dose and 40,48,754 HCWs who have taken the second dose, 71,16,849 Frontline Workers (FLWs) (first dose), 6,70,813 FLWs (second dose), 1,02,158 beneficiaries aged 45 and above with specific co-morbidities and 59,98,754 beneficiaries more than 60 years old.
Total of 3,89,337 vaccine doses were given till 7 p.m. today, the 55th day of nationwide COVID-19 vaccination. Out of which beneficiaries 3,20,247 were vaccinated for first dose and 69,090 HCWs and FLWs received second dose of vaccine as per the provisional report. Final reports would be completed for the day by late tonight.
Speaking at a press conference on Thursday Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan noted that there is no vaccine shortage in any State in the country and said the acceleration in vaccination has been achieved with active collaboration of private facilities. Seventy-one per cent of vaccine dose administered is in the public sector while 28.7% has been contributed by the private sector. “The AEFI reported so far stands at 0.020% of the total immunization done,” said Mr. Bhushan.
