COVID-19 News Updates

A universal vaccine which will protect people against all future variants of the lethal coronavirus! How does that sound? Well, a team of Indian scientists claims to have designed a peptide vaccine which can be effective against all the variants of SARS-COV-2.

The active cases comprise 1.26 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has further improved to 97.55 per cent, the ministry said.

The State detected 1,148 positive cases, including 244 cases between 0 and 18 years age category, in the last 24 hours.

The second worst-hit country in terms of cases is India (42,586,544 infections and 507,981 deaths), followed by Brazil (27,434,286 infections and 638,346 deaths).

The study, by Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), showed that during the omicron period fewer patients died while hospitalised (4 per cent), compared with those admitted when the delta variant was dominant (8.3 per cent).

The active cases in the State now stood at 13,285 while 12,53,914 patients have recovered from the disease so far, added I&PR Department.

The death toll has climbed to 5,07,981 with 804 daily fatalities

It said the Quad is working to identify and address vaccine gaps and barriers exacerbated by gender, disability and social inequities, and ensure safe, effective, affordable and quality-assured vaccination coverage in hard-to-reach areas.

A yet another theory is that the genetic material is from other animal-borne coronaviruses that were circulating at the time or being experimented on by the Chinese.

The researchers noted that vaccination, including a booster dose for those who are fully vaccinated, remains critical for mitigating the risk of severe illness associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection.

A total of 2,82,93,841 samples, including 68,239 in the past 24 hours, have been tested in the State so far. The daily Test Positivity Rate (TPR) now stands at 2.30 per cent.

The daily COVID-19 cases are being recorded at less than one lakh for the last five consecutive days.

In its latest update on Friday morning, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and the death toll stood at 405,688,274 and 5,788,456, respectively, while the total number of vaccine doses administered has increased to 10,143,832,034.

Meanwhile, health expert Dr Srikanth Dhar said, "Even though the Covid cases across the country is witnessing a downtrend, around 60% of the total cases have been detected with Omicron. BA.2 is higher in comparison to BA.1. It can be stated that almost all Covid cases are of Omicron."

Infection by one variant does not provide protection from the other variants, Indian Council of Medical Research Director General Dr Balram Bhargava said on Thursday.