Amid the devastating second wave of coronavirus in India, the World Health Organisation (WHO) chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan called on the government to undertake exercies to report actual virus numbers. Talking to news agency ANI, Swaminathan said: "I would say that at this point of time, the situation is very worrying. The daily number of cases and deaths that we are seeing today in India and other countries in the Southeast Asia region is a big concern for us, and we also realise that these are underestimates. In every country in the world, in fact, the number of cases and deaths has been underestimated to its true number," she said.
The WHO had earlier classified the B.1.617 variant of the coronavirus, first identified in India, as a variant of concern at the global level. Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, COVID-19 technical lead at the WHO, said on Monday that the B.1.617 virus variant, that was first identified in India, had been classified as a variant of interest by the WHO. She said the Epi team and WHO lab team has been discussing with the WHO virus evolution working group this variant and everything that we know about it in terms of transmissibility and any studies that are being done in India as well as in other countries where this virus is circulating.
As of Monday, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Delhi were among 10 states that accounted for 71.75 per cent of the 4,03,738 new COVID-19 cases registered in a day. The other states in the list of 10 are Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Rajasthan, and Haryana. Maharashtra has reported the highest daily new cases at 56,578. It is followed by Karnataka with 47,563 while Kerala reported 41,971 new cases. A total of more than 30.22 crore tests have been conducted so far across the country while the daily COVID-19 positivity rate stands at 21.64 per cent, the ministry said.
Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Haryana, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh cumulatively account for 82.94 per cent of India's total active cases, the ministry stated.
