India on Thursday morning recorded 43,509 coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, pushing the infection tally to 3,15,28,114 since the pandemic broke out in January last year. The number of new infections is marginally lower than Wednesday’s count of 43,654.

However, the number of active cases climbed by 4,404 to 4,03,840. With 640 new deaths, the toll mounted to 4,22,662. There are 3,07,01,612 patients who have recovered from the coronavirus infection.

So far, India has administered 45,07,06,257 Covid-19 doses. As many as 43,92,697 shots were given on Wednesday alone.

Source: Ministry of Family Health and Welfare

The Centre on Wednesday extended the implementation of guidelines for the management of the coronavirus disease till August 31 and directed states to take “strictest possible measures” in districts that have a high positivity rate, India Today reported.

On Wednesday, International Monetary Fund Chief Economist Gita Gopinath said that the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic in India was “catastrophic”, unlike in other countries, while explaining the economic body’s decision to downgrade India’s growth projection.

The IMF has lowered its economic growth projection for India for the current financial year (2021-’22) by three percentage points to 9.5% from the earlier forecast of 12.5% made in April.

Meanwhile, the United States announced an aid of $25 million (Rs 186.32 crore) to assist India’s Covid-19 vaccination programme. The United States Agency International Development said that it has allocated more than $226 million (about Rs 1,670 crore) as Covid-19 relief to India since March 2020.

Globally, Covid-19 has infected 19.59 crore people and caused 41.86 lakh deaths since the pandemic broke out in December 2019, according to Johns Hopkins University.