India logs 41,965 new Covid cases

New Delhi: Amid the threat of new Covid variant C.1.2, which has been detected in South Africa and several other countries, the Union Health Ministry has on Wednesday clarified that no case of this variant has been detected in India so far. A new study has revealed that the new Covid-19 variant C.1.2 could be more transmissible and evade protection provided by vaccines.

With 41,965 people testing positive for COVID-19, India's total tally of cases rose to 3,28,10,845, while active cases have increased to 3,78,181. The death toll has climbed to 4,39,020 with 460 more fatalities. The number of active cases has increased to 3,78,181 and comprise 1.15 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has been recorded at 97.51 per cent, ministry said. It said that active cases increased by 7,541 in a span of 24 hours.

The scientists from National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) and the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP) in South Africa has said that the potential variant of interest was first detected in the country in May this year.

However, the government has categorically clarified that 'no case of new Covid variant C.1.2 has been detected in India so far' and the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology has been put on alert in this regard for detection.

Meanwhile, the WHO has said that to date there are 100 sequences of C.1.2. reported globally; from the earliest report in May from South Africa and currently it does not appear to be 'increasing in circulation'.

The scientists in the study stated that the Covid variant in question has been found in China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mauritius, the UK, New Zealand, Portugal and Switzerland as of August 13 and there has been consistent increase in the number of C.1.2 genomes in South Africa each month.

On Tuesday, 16,06,785 tests were conducted in India, taking the total cumulative tests done so far for detection of COVID-19 in the country to 52,31,84,293. The daily positivity rate has been recorded 2.61 per cent, the ministry said.

The weekly positivity rate has been recorded at 2.58 per cent and it has been below three per cent for the last 68 days, it said and added that the trend of less than 50,000 daily cases is being reported for 66 consecutive days now.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease has increased to 3,19,93,644, while the case fatality rate stands at 1.34 per cent.

The cumulative COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the country has crossed 66 crore on Wednesday. More than 69 lakh (69,42,335) vaccine doses have been administered on Wednesday as per the 7 pm provisional report.

Meanwhile, Google on Wednesday said users will be able to get more information about vaccine availability and appointments for over 13,000 locations in the country across its three products - Search, Maps and Assistant - starting this week.

The information is powered by real-time data from the CoWIN APIs, and includes details like availability of appointment slots at each centre, vaccines and doses offered (Dose 1 or Dose 2), pricing (paid or free), and link to CoWIN website for booking, a statement said.

The information will automatically show up when users search for vaccine centres near them, or in any specific area across Google Search, Maps and Google Assistant, it added.

In addition to English, users can also search in eight Indian languages including Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Gujarati, and Marathi.