With a 32 per cent one-day jump in the number of new coronavirus infections, India recorded 38,617 fresh COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, government data shows.
India also saw 474 Covid-related deaths in the last 24 hours, taking its overall fatalities to 1,30,993. So far, the country has recorded a total of 89.12 Covid cases so far since the January outbreak.
The national daily Covid case rise in the last 24 hours reflects increased testing, which finally touched 9.3 lakh after dropping to about 8 lakh over the weekend because of Diwali festivities. It pushed up the positivity rate to 4.1 per cent.
Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer on Wednesday said that its COVID-19 vaccine candidate was found to be 95 per cent effective in the final analysis of the Phase 3 trial, adding it had the required two-months of safety data and would apply for emergency US authorization within days.
The drugmaker said the efficacy of the vaccine developed with German partner BioNTech SE was consistent across age and ethnicity demographics, and that there were no major side effects, a sign that the immunization could be employed broadly around the world.
The study reached 170 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with the vaccine candidate BNT162b2 demonstrating 95 per cent efficacy beginning 28 days after the first dose, Pfizer said.
