India’s recovery rate rises to 84.70%, fatality rate drops to 1.55%

Our Correspondent

India reported 61,267 coronavirus cases and 884 deaths in the last 24 hours ending 8am on October 6. With this, the total number of COVID-19 cases in the country rose to 66,85,083 while the toll soared to 1,03,569. At present, India has 9,19,023 active cases while as many as 56,62,491 people have recovered. India’s recovery rate has now risen to 84.70 per cent, while the fatality rate has further dropped to 1.55 per cent.

The Maharashtra government, in a report, has said that a spike in the State’s unemployment rate in August is threatening the revival of the COVID-hit economy. It blamed the imposition of micro lockdowns in several parts of the state and loss of work under MGNREGS for the latest uptick in numbers.

Meanwhile, the Education Ministry Monday issued broad guidelines for reopening schools for all grades, including junior students, in a phased manner, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, but has left the decision on whether to bring back the youngest or the oldest students first up to the State governments.

On the vaccines front, as several experimental vaccines against COVID-19 near the end of clinical trials, the National Expert Group on vaccine administration has begun to map cold chain storage facilities across the country.

Globally, over 35 million people have been infected while more than one million have succumbed to the virus. Only the United States, where over 2.12 lakh people have died and Brazil, where about 1.45 lakh have succumbed, were ahead of India.