India recorded over 4 lakh new corona cases in the last 24 hours ending 8 am Saturday, taking the country’s total caseload to over 2.18 crore. Out of these, over 37 lakh cases are currently active while over 1.79 crore people have recovered. With 4,187 new deaths, the toll now stands at over 2.38 lakh. At least 14 states are reporting cases in five figures. Maharashtra reported about 54,000 cases, Karnataka had nearly 49,000, while Kerala had over 38,000.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday spoke to Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on the coronavirus situation in the state, government sources said. After reporting an uptick in infections initially, the state has not started recording a decline with covid cases. Infections reduced by over 8,000 in the last 24 hours. Maharashtra is yet to induce a covid-19 lockdown, but has strict curbs in place.
Modi has been interacting with chief ministers over telephone for the last couple of days to take stock of the situation in their states.
Urging the Centre to provide more vaccines to Delhi, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday said that Delhi has only 5-6 days of vaccinations left as around “1 lakh people” are getting vaccinated daily. Kejriwal also said that the capital can finish its vaccination drive within 3 months if Centre provides it with 80-85 lakh doses each month. “To complete vaccination within 3 months, we need to vaccinate 3 lakh people every day. Currently, we are inoculating 1 lakh people in a day. I request the Central government to ensure adequate availability of vaccines to Delhi,” he said at a presser.
A day after Tamil Nadu recorded its biggest single day spike in covid cases, the new DMK government on Saturday announced a complete lockdown in the state from May 10 to May 14, becoming the latest state to do so. Before this, neighboring states Kerala and Karnataka announced complete lockdowns on Friday due to the second wave of the virus.
Amid India’s deadly second wave, twenty-four states have reported a test positivity rate of more than 15 per cent for Covid-19 over the last week, the government said. At least 30 districts had showed “a steep upward trend” in cases over the last two weeks. The data were a “matter of great concern”, the Health Ministry said.
