India: Daily COVID deaths below 100, lowest in 9 months

NEW DELHI

India’s daily death toll from the coronavirus fell below 100 Tuesday for the first time in almost nine months, official figures showed.

According to an update released by the Indian Health Ministry, the world’s second-most populous country recorded only 94 fatalities over the last 24 hours, bringing the nationwide death toll to 154,486. It registered 8,635 new infections for a caseload of 10.76 million.

Thus the daily cases dropped below 9,000 in India after eight months and daily deaths were reported to be fewer than 100, the lowest in almost nine months.

Although India is currently the second worst-hit country in the world in terms of the number of cases, the number of new cases has shown a huge decline across the country.

The Indian government Tuesday said that they decided to send two high-level teams to the states of Kerala and Maharashtra which continue to report a large number of cases. “At present, these two states alone are contributing to almost 70% of active COVID-19 cases in the country,” an official release said.

The country last month began the world’s largest COVID-19 vaccination drive, with the official records revealing that nearly four million people have been vaccinated so far.

Meanwhile, health workers in the western Maharashtra state have allegedly administered sanitizer to 12 children instead of oral polio vaccine during an ongoing drive, local media reported.

“The children are absolutely fine and under observation for 48 hours,” Hari Pawar, a health officer in Maharashtra’s Yavatmal district, was quoted by daily The Indian Express.