Ten districts have maximum Covid cases

The union health ministry has said that the next phase of the Covid-19 vaccination drive, which allows all people above 45 to get immunised, would be crucial because 88 per cent of all Covid-related deaths in India have taken place among the age group of 45 and above. Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan on Wednesday said the case fatality rate in this age group is 2.85 per cent. The top 10 districts where maximum active  Coronavirus cases are concentrated are - Pune, Nagpur, Mumbai, Thane, Nashik, Aurangabad, Bengaluru Urban, Nanded, Jalgaon and Akola.

As per the ministry data, India currently has 3,68,457 active cases. A large chunk of these cases is in Maharashtra, followed by Punjab. "Two states are of grave concern, that have shown a recent surge in cases are- Maharashtra, that reported more than 28,000 cases in the last 24 hours, and Punjab, that is reporting a huge number of cases in proportion to its population," The ministry also flagged concerns about the spike in cases in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Chattisgarh, and Chandigarh.Bhushan said. "Besides them, Gujarat and MP are of concern too. Gujarat reporting around 1700 cases daily and MP around 1500 cases. Most cases in Gujarat concentrated in Surat, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Rajkot and Bhavnagar. In MP, it's concentrated in Bhopal, Indore, Jabalpur, Ujjain and Betul," the health secretary said.

The ministry also clarified that the double mutant strain of the Covid-19 virus is not being directly linked to the surge in the number of infections. The surge can be attributed to the pool of susceptible population in any particular area, who are not adhering to Covid-19 appropriate norms. Such a population will be vulnerable to any strain, including the one seen in 2020. In India, 771 variants of concerns (VOCs) have been detected in a total of 10,787 positive samples shared by states and UTs. These included the UK variant, the South African variant and the Brazil variant. Apart from these three mutants, the Centre also mentioned a double mutant variant, which is new. "Such mutations confer immune escape and increased infectivity," it said.