India saw an addition of 2.22 lakh fresh Covid infections to its active caseload, taking the overall case count to 2.67 crore.
In the last 24 hours, 4,454 people died, taking the total number of deaths to 3,03,720.
Hit by second wave, India has become the third country after Brazil and the United States to record over 3 lakh deaths linked to Covid since the pandemic broke. Over 90,000 deaths and nearly 80 lakh cases have been reported this month so far.
With 35,483 cases reported in the past 24 hours, Tamil Nadu is leading the state list. It is followed by Maharashtra with 26,672 new infections. Karnataka reported 25,979 cases, Kerala 25,820 and Andhra Pradesh 18,767 cases. The case count was 18,422 for West Bengal
The six most affected states by total cases are Maharashtra (5,579,897), Karnataka (2,424,904), Kerala (2,317,911), Tamil Nadu (1,806,861), Uttar Pradesh (1,670,020), and Andhra Pradesh (1,580,827).
A top virologist, Dr Gagandeep Kang, said on Sunday that India delayed the process of bulk-buying vaccines unlike several other nations and may now have few options available in the international market. “The rest of the world has been buying vaccines at risk for a year, so what’s the supply that is available in the market for us to go now and say we want to buy vaccines?” she said.
