Coronavirus LIVE: Kerala sees nearly 40,000 cases; 42,582 in Maharashtra

Coronavirus live updates: India recorded 362,727 fresh Covid-19 infections on Thursday, taking the caseload tally to 23,703,665, according to MoHFW. Deaths from the virus surged by 4,120 to hit 258,317 in total. Meanwhile, Delhi, Maharashtra and Karnataka have decided to suspend the vaccination for people between 18-44 years age group, which had started symbolically on May 1, till further orders amid acute shortage of vaccines. Most states are yet to start the vaccination drive for 18+ group. Health minister Harsh Vardhan on Wednesday urged states to understand the limited availability of vaccines and not create unrealistic and impractical expectations while ensuring judicious use of doses to minimise wastage.

“The government is making all efforts to ramp up vaccine production in the country. Vaccines are scientifically distributed among you and we both know how much you have and what is in the pipeline. Please understand the seriousness of this issue,” Vardhan said.

Maharashtra reported 46,781 new coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases and 920 deaths, followed by Karnataka (39,998), Kerala (43,529), Uttar Pradesh (18,125), Tamil Nadu (30,355), Andhra Pradesh (21,452), West Bengal (20,377), Delhi (13,287) in the past 24 hours.

The six most affected states by total cases are Maharashtra (5,226,710), Karnataka (2,053,191), Kerala (1,980,000), Uttar Pradesh (1,545,212), Tamil Nadu (14,68,864), Delhi (1,323,567), and Andhra Pradesh (1,344,386).

World coronavirus update: Coronavirus cases rise unabated across the globe with 161,076,560 infected by the deadly contagion. While 139,846,739 have recovered, 3,344,743 have died so far. The US remains the worst-hit country with 33,585,943, followed by India, Brazil, France and Turkey. However, in the past seven days, India has added the highest number of fresh cases at 2,682,192, followed by the Brazil (424,236) and US (274,987).