Coronavirus LIVE: West Bengal govt extends Covid restrictions till Aug 31

Coronavirus updates: India recorded 40,120 new Covid-19 cases and 585 deaths in the past 24 hours, taking its tally to 32,117,826 and the death toll to 430,254. Also, 1,970,495 tests were conducted Thursday, taking the cumulative tests carried out so far for the detection of Covid-19 in the country to 489,470,779. The daily positivity rate was recorded at 2.04 per cent.

The World Health Organisation's chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan has said there will be a need to be on guard in the months to come as well.

With over 100,000 coronavirus cases reported in the United States for the fourth consecutive day, the daily Covid-19 cases have reached a six-month high in the country as multiple states with lower vaccination rates continue to reel under the Delta variant.

World coronavirus update: Covid-19 is continuing to spread around the world, with 206,156,536 confirmed cases and 4,346,678 deaths across nearly 200 countries recorded since China reported its first cases in December 2019. The US remains the worst-hit country with 37,182,479 cases, followed by India, Brazil, Russia and France. 

To read updates from our yesterday's blog, click here