New COVID cases in India decline for second day, recovery rate improves

A spike of 18,522 coronavirus cases in past 24 hours took India's tally today to 5,66,840 even as the recovery rate further improved to 59.06%. This is the second day of decline in fresh covid cases. On Sunday, 19,906 fresh cases were reported while on Monday 19,459, according to health ministry figures.

Meanwhile, the death toll has climbed to 16,893 with 418 new fatalities in 24 hours, according to the latest Union Health Ministry data. The number of active cases stands at 2,15,125, while 3,34,821 patients have recovered. In past 24 hours, 13,099 patients were declared cured from coronavirus. The gap between recovered patients and active cases has widened to 1.19 lakh.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the nation later today as the country enters "unlock 2" from July 1. The home ministry has issued guidelines, further easing the restrictions imposed due to the coronavirus lockdown.

According to medical research body ICMR a total of 86,08,654 samples have been tested up to June 29, with 2,10,292 samples tested on



Monday.

Globally, total covid cases surged to 1.02 crore while the death toll to 5.04 lakh, according to latest numbers compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The US with about 26 lakh coronavirus cases and 1.26 lakh deaths accounted for one-fourth of the total cases and fatalities across the world.

The country's 'first' indigenous COVID-19 vaccine COVAXIN, developed by city-Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech in collaboration with ICMR and NIV, has got the nod for human clinical trials from the Drug Controller General of India

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has warned the worst of the coronavirus pandemic, which emerged in China at least six months ago, is still to come.

"We all want this to be over. We all want to get on with our lives," World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

"But the hard reality is this is not even close to being over," he said, adding that "although many countries have made some progress, globally the pandemic is actually speeding up." (With Agency Inputs)