India’s COVID-19 tally not rising due to hybrid immunisation, but don’t drop vigil says expert

New Delhi, Dec 14: India's COVID-19 tally is not rising because of hybrid immunisation, COVID-19 Working Group NTAGI Chairman N K Arora said on Wednesday. Dr. Arora however warned that India still needs to be vigilant.

India on Wednesday reported 152 cases with no deaths on the third consecutive day. Speaking to news agency ANI, Dr. Arora said that India still needs to be vigilant. I would say, we need to maintain complete vigil on the quality of genetic surveillance as part of the INSACOG.

"We have been discussing this for three years in India but during the last three months, the cases have gradually come down and it is less than around 500-600 cases every day. Although 2,00,000 tests are being done every day and deaths are between five to 10 every day and sometimes even no deaths are reported. Most of these deaths are in your region with comorbidity and an incidental finding of COVID infection," he said while also adding that India is not getting affected even after South Asian countries reporting several cases because of hybrid immunisation.

"There is an outbreak of an increase in the number of cases in several South Asian countries as well as China, Japan, and Australia. Fortunately, 97 percent of our adult population has got two doses. Most of us have got natural infections. So there is a hybrid immunisation and we are not seeing any serious outcome," Dr. Arora added.

The total tally of COVID-19 in India stands at 4.46 crore. With no fatalities being reported for the third consecutive day, the death toll stands at 5,30,658 the data updated at 8 am today shows.

The active cases comprises 0.01 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has increased to 98.80 per cent, according to the health ministry. An increase of one case has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease increased to 4.41 crore while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.19 per cent.