India reports 12k new Covid-19 cases, tally reaches 1.08 crore

India on Friday reported 12,408 new infections, increasing the overall tally to 1,08,02,591, health officials said on Friday. For over a week, the country has recorded less than 15,000 single-day Covid-19 cases.

On 19 January, the country had reported 10,064 new cases, the lowest this year. Last year, the lowest 9,633 cases were recorded on 3 June 2020.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said that there were 120 more Covid-19 fatalities in the last 24 hours, taking the overall death toll to 1,54,823. The country’s daily death count has also remained below the 300-mark for more than a month now. As per the Ministry’s data, there are 1,51,460 active cases presently after 15,853 patients were discharged in a day. Till now, 1,04,80,455 persons have been discharged so far.

The recovery rate has increased to 97.16 per cent, while the fatality rate is down to 1.43 per cent.

A total of 19,99,31,795 samples have been tested for Covid-19 up to 4 February. Of these, 7,15,776 samples were tested on Wednesday, said the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

Nearly 5 million (49,59,445) doses of Covid-19 vaccine doses have been administered in India since the mass inoculation drive began on 16 January. As per the Health Ministry, India is in fifth position globally in terms of the vaccine doses administered in the country, despite the fact that many countries had launched their vaccination campaigns before India.

Meanwhile, three weeks into the Covid immunisation drive, Delhi started to vaccinate its frontline workers on a pilot basis since Thursday at select vaccination centres to test the process before rolling it out full scale from Saturday, officials said.

“The frontline workers were permitted from Thursday, on a pilot basis on some select vaccination booths in each district, as from Saturday, the vaccination of the frontline workers will start on full scale,” a senior government official told IANS.

The official also said that the pilot run went smooth and no discrepancy has been found in the mechanism so far.

However, the other details related to vaccination are yet to be known from the government. There is no clarity on whether all the vaccination centres would be directed to inoculate frontline workers or only a chunk will be allowed.

The pilot run of Covid-19 vaccination for frontline workers including civil defence staff and municipal workers started on Thursday.

There are a total of six lakh frontline workers in the national capital of which around 3.5 lakh frontline workers have been registered for the vaccine shots while over 90,000 healthcare workers have been vaccinated so far.

Dr Ajeet Jain, Medical Superintendent of the Delhi government-run Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital (RGSSH), said that the frontline workers have been queuing up for the last two days. “We have vaccinated 10 per cent extra of the target both on Thursday and Friday,” he told IANS.

Dr Pragya Shukla, nodal officer of the vaccine centre at the Delhi State Cancer Institute (DSCI), said that the hospital vaccinated 160 people which include healthcare and frontline workers on Friday.

However, they did not reveal the figures of frontline workers who received the jabs. “We have not prepared a separate list for now since there was no direction from the government,” said Dr Chhavi Gupta, media spokesperson of RGSSH.

WITH IANS INPUTS