New coronavirus strain: 20 more test positive in India, tally reaches 58

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Fifty-eight people have been infected with the new strain of coronavirus, first reported in the United Kingdom, in India so far, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) informed on Tuesday.

Out of the lot, 20 new cases have been identified at the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune.

According to MoHFW’s release, the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) labs at NCBS InSTEM, Bengaluru, CDFD Hyderabad, ILS Bhubaneswar, and NCCS Pune have so far found no mutant virus.

The positive samples are being tested at 10 INSACOG labs across the country (NIBMG Kolkata, ILS Bhubaneswar, NIV Pune, NCCS Pune, CCMB Hyderabad, CDFD Hyderabad, InSTEM Bengaluru, NIMHANS Bengaluru, IGIB Delhi, NCDC Delhi) for genome sequencing.

All these persons have been kept in single room isolation in designated Health Care facilities by respective State Governments. Their close contacts have also been put under quarantine. Comprehensive contact tracing has been initiated for co-travellers, family contacts, and others. Genome sequencing on other specimens is going on.

The Ministry informed that the situation is under “careful watch” and “regular advice is being provided to the States” for enhanced surveillance, containment, testing, and dispatch of samples to INSACOG labs.

Meanwhile, the country’s active caseload for Covid-19 has been decreasing and now stands at 2,31,036 as of Tuesday. This constitutes a paltry 2.23 per cent of total positive cases so far, according to the Union Health Ministry.

This has been made possible by daily recoveries outnumbering daily new cases for 39 days in a streak. Against 29,091 people who recovered in the just concluded 24-hour window, India could report only 16,375 new cases maintaining a steady level of testing (8,96,236 samples were tested in the last 24 hours). A net decline of 12,917 cases has been recorded in the total active cases in the last 24 hours.

India’s cumulative recoveries have inched closer to the one crore mark. The total recovered cases have crossed 99.75 lakhs (99,75,958) today. This also increases the recovery rate to 96.32 per cent.

A total of 29,091 cases have recovered in the last 24 hours while 82.62 per cent of the new recovered cases are observed to be concentrated in 10 States/UTs.

Maharashtra has reported the maximum number of single-day recoveries with 10,362 recoveries followed by Kerala with 5,145 new recoveries. Chhattisgarh recorded 1,349 daily recoveries.

Ten States/UTs have contributed 80.05 per cent of the new cases.

Maharashtra reported 4,875 cases in the last 24 hours. Kerala recorded 3,021 new cases while Chhattisgarh reported 1,147 daily cases yesterday.

14.42 per cent of new fatalities reported are from Maharashtra which reported 29 deaths. West Bengaland Punjab also saw a fatality count of 25 and 24 contributing another 12.44 per cent and 11.94 per cent of the fatalities.