India second after USA, leaves behind Brazil

Jubilee News Desk

As metro services resume in the country on Monday India attained dubious second position in covid tally. Only USA is ahead from India now while Brazil has been left behind.

The total infection count crossed 42 lakh mark in the covid infection tally with 90,802 new cases reported in 24-hours. The toll stands at 71,642 with 1016 deaths reported.

The USA has reported 6,460,250 cases and India 42,04,614 cases, while Brazil 4,137,606 cases. Till two days before Brazil was ahead of India in the case tally.

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This is for the second consecutive day that India has added more than 90,000 infections to the increasing tally. Of the 42,04,614 cases, over 32 lakh patients have been discharged, while nearly 8.9 lakh infections are still active.

The toll stands at 71,642 with 1016 deaths reported. Only the United States, where more than 61 lakh people have so far been found to be infected, is ahead of India. After five months of suspension, metro rail services resumed in selected parts of the country, including Lucknow the state capital of Uttar Pradesh.

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With facemasks and social distancing protocols being mandatory, only asymptomatic people will be allowed to board the trains. Tokens or cash transactions are discouraged and only smartcards are allowed in many cities. Based on central guidelines, the metro authorities of Delhi, Noida, Chennai, Kochi, Bengaluru, Mumbai Line-1, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Maha Metro (Nagpur), Kolkata, Gujarat, and Uttar Pradesh have prepared their standard operating procedures. Maharashtra will not be resuming the metro operation this month.

Also the Russian research institute has now submitted “comprehensive data” on the safety and efficacy of Sputnik V vaccine to Indian authorities. As this “comprehensive data” is evaluated by experts in India, one option, sources said, is to have a separate Phase 3 clinical trial after necessary approvals from regulators here.