Portrait of young woman putting on a protective mask
India reported 41,806 fresh coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, with deaths rising by 581, according to health ministry data.
With the highest number of cases, Maharashtra recorded 8,602 cases over a 24-hour period. The fresh cases took the number of infections to over 61.81 lakh and 170 deaths took the cumulative death count to 1,26,390.
Kerala still remains at the top with 15,637 cases which is by far the highest number of Covid cases in a day. It is followed by Maharashtra (8,602), Tamil Nadu (2,458) and Karnataka (1,990).
The AY.1 and AY.2 sub-lineages of the highly contagious Delta Variant of the novel coronavirus are unlikely to be more transmissible than Delta itself, said the consortium of government panels involved in genome sequencing of coronavirus. In a recent bulletin, the Indian Sars-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) said that the cases of Delta sub-lineages AY.1 and AY.2 are declining globally, with near-zero cases in the last week of June in the UK and the US where they were most frequently detected.
“It is likely that neither AY.1 nor AY.2 is more transmissible than Delta,” the INSACOG said, adding there is no indication of a rising trend in the four clusters of Ratnagiri and Jalgaon in Maharashtra, Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh and Chennai in Tamil Nadu.
Meanwhile, Singapore also reported its highest number of local coronavirus cases in 10 months on Wednesday, after the discovery of a cluster among hostesses and customers of KTV karaoke lounges.
Of the 56 new community infections, 42 were linked to the KTV outbreak, the health ministry said.
The World Health Organization reported Wednesday that deaths climbed last week after nine straight weeks of decline. It recorded more than 55,000 lives lost, a 3 per cent increase from the week before. Cases rose 10 per cent last week to nearly 3 million, with the highest numbers recorded in Brazil, India, Indonesia and Britain, WHO said.