India registers about 250,000 coronavirus cases with positivity of 13%

India on Thursday registered about 250,000 infections by coronavirus, an increase of 27% compared to yesterday and 172% compared to the same day last week, in the framework of a third wave that has caused a tightening of restrictions.

According to the latest data from the Indian Ministry of Health, the Asian country counted 247,417 infections in the last 24 hours, bringing the cases detected since the start of the pandemic to 36.2 million.

The positivity rate has also increased rapidly in the Asian country, standing today at 13.11% while on December 30 it was at 1.1%.

The country also registered 380 deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing the total officially recognized deaths to 485,035, as well as 5,488 cases of the omicron variant since it was first detected in Indian territory last December.

The rapid increase in cases worries the authorities, despite the fact that the director of the Indian Medical Research Council (ICMR), Balram Bhargava, said yesterday during a press conference that initial data collected by other countries suggests that the variant omicron is less virulent and requires fewer hospitalizations.

Many states have reacted to the rise in cases by imposing restrictions, such as in New Delhi, where authorities have closed restaurants and offices in addition to imposing a night curfew.

Organizations such as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFCR) have pointed out, however, that the rise in cases due to the contagious variant could cause a collapse of health systems in South Asian countries. like the one that India or Nepal already suffered last year.

India became the global epicenter of the pandemic in May 2021, during a devastating second wave that brought this nation of 1.35 billion people to a peak of more than 400,000 infections and more than 4,500 deaths per day, saturating infrastructure. health of the country and causing a shortage of oxygen and hospital beds.

India has administered 1.546 million doses against the coronavirus, and 644 million people have received the complete vaccination schedule, according to the official Cowin platform.