The total number of cases with the UK, South Africa and Brazil variants of SARS-CoV-2 in the country has reached 795, the Union Health Ministry said on Tuesday as India is witnessing a surge in COVID-19 cases. From 400 cases reported on March 18, the infections by mutant strains have increased to 795 in the country.
Minister of State for Health Ashwini Choubey told Rajya Sabha on March 16 that no case of reinfection by mutant variants of SARS-CoV-2 virus has been reported from India so far.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), in the three countries where the pandemic is being driven by the variant mutants of SARS-CoV-2 virus, namely the UK, South Africa and Brazil, the South African and Brazilian variants have the potential to reinfect persons who have been previously infected with SARS-CoV-2, he said in a written reply.
In one of the biggest news of the days so far, the Supreme Court refused to extend the six-month loan moratorium period offered by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) last year, saying that it is 'policy decision' on the part of the Centre and RBI. The bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan said the top court cannot do judicial review of the centre's financial policy decisions unless they are malafide and arbitrary.
In other big developments, India recorded 40,715 fresh cases of coronavirus taking the tally to 1,16,86,796 cases, the government data this morning showed. 199 deaths in the last 24 hours took the total number of deaths since the beginning of the pandemic to 1,60,166 deaths.
Yesterday, the country saw 46,951 fresh infections, the biggest single-day spike since early November. Several parts in the country are witnessing a second Covid wave with authorities putting back restrictions in place to control the spread of virus.
