The Covid-19 dummy vaccination drive, aimed at testing India’s vaccine delivery system and other logistics is set to commence today. The dry run, the largest mass immunisation programme in the country’s history will be carried out in four states- Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab, and Assam.
India reported 20,021 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours ending 8 Monday, taking the country’s total tally past 1.02 cr. Of the total cases, 2.77 lakh cases are currently active while over 97.82 lakh people have recovered. With 279 deaths reported on Sunday, the death toll now stands at over 1.47 lakh. At 7.15 lakh samples, the country tested one of the lowest samples on Sunday since August. As a result, new infections are likely to be low on Monday as well. Delhi is now consistently reporting below 1,000 cases, a level that was last seen in August.
European countries including Italy, Germany and France kicked off their vaccination campaign Sunday as a growing list of countries in the continent have identified their first cases of coronavirus’s new strain. Till December 25th, over 3,500 people have been infected from the virus variant, mostly in the UK, but steadily growing in France, Ireland, Israel, Hong Kong and Singapore. South Korea became the latest country to record its first case of the new variant on Monday.
In other news, on the eve of the three-day session of the Madhya Pradesh Assembly, 61 employees and officials of the Assembly secretariat and five MLAs tested positive for Covid-19.
