New record of 379,000 daily coronavirus cases in India

India had a new record in daily Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) infections with more than 379,000 cases recorded in the past 24 hours, figures from India’s Health Ministry showed on Thursday.

In addition, 3,645 people as a result of the disease, the ministry said.

From May, all adults in India are to be able to get vaccinated.

When people were able to register online from Wednesday, the rush was so great that the servers of the registration website were overloaded at times, Indian media and many Twitter users reported.

Initially, vaccinations are to be available only after online registration.

But vaccines in India are in short supply given the large population of more than 1.3 billion even though India produces vaccines en masse and is known as the pharmacy of the world.

So far, less than 10 per cent of people have received at least one vaccine dose.

The fierce second wave has seen huge religious festivals and election campaign events in recent weeks, as well as a virus variant that is slightly more infectious and resilient to immunity, German virologist Christian Drosten stated.

The total number of infections has risen to more than 18 million in the populous South Asian nation.

In addition, a total of more than 200,000 people have died in connection with COVID-19 since the pandemic began.

According to the World Health Organisation, 38 per cent of the COVID-19 cases reported worldwide earlier were from India.