Health workers in a mobile Covid testing van take swab samples for rapid testing in New Delhi
Coronavirus India News Live Updates: With 37,724 fresh cases and 648 deaths in the last 24 hours, India has so far recorded 11,82,915 coronavirus cases including 7,53,050 recoveries and 28,732 deaths. The country ranks third globally in the number of cases, behind only the United States and Brazil.
On Wednesday, Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the government will seriously consider reimposing a complete lockdown after the state, for the first time, breached the 1000-mark in a single day. The Madhya Pradesh government has also announced a while a seven-day complete lockdown in Manipur starting Thursday could extend to 14 days, CM Biren Singh said. Maharashtra continues to remain the worst-affected state, reporting the highest single-day spike of 10,576 COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, taking its overall tally to 3,37,607 cases.
Meanwhile, the Serum Institute of India hopes to embark on phase III human clinical trials with the Oxford University vaccine candidate by August, CEO Adar Poonawalla, told The Indian Express. “We hope to enroll a few thousand people and if all goes well, the vaccine should be out by the year-end,” said Poonawalla. While the final figure will be decided by the Drug Controller General of India, when asked about the cost of the vaccine, Poonawalla said the cost of the vaccine is estimated to be below Rs 1,000.
The number of coronavirus infections in the world has crossed 15 million, at least triple the number of severe influenza illnesses recorded annually.
With over 11 lakh cases, India, third only to the United States and Brazil, concerns are raised about its readiness to confront a surge in the cases (AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A.)