India reports 42,982 new Covid-19 cases

India on Thursday recorded 42,982 cases of Covid-19 which pushed the country's cumulative infections closer to 32 million, the Union health ministry data showed.

This is an increase of nearly 300 cases recorded on Wednesday. The cumulative cases of infectious disease in the country have now reached 31.8 million, reports the Hindustan Times.

The country also saw 533 new deaths due to Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, taking the total fatalities in India to 426,290.

For the second day in a row, India recorded more than 40,000 cases of coronavirus disease amid concerns of the rising trajectory of fresh infections.

The active cases in the country have surged by more than 700 cases in the last 24 hours, taking the caseload to 4,11,076. This accounts for 1.29 per cent of the total cases seen in the country so far.

With 41,726 patients recovering during last 24 hours, the national recovery rate in the country has been logged at 97.3 per cent. The total recoveries from the viral contagion in the country stand at 30,974,748.

India has administered 48.93 crore Covid-19 doses so far, data released by the health ministry showed.

According to a study, India is likely to witness another surge in Covid-19 cases in August but not as grave as the second wave.

Researchers Mathukumalli Vidyasagar and Manindra Agrawal at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Hyderabad and Kanpur respectively have predicted that a surge in Covid-19 cases will push the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic. The wave is likely to peak in October.

The rise in Covid-19 cases will begin as soon as August, marking the rise of third wave, according to experts. They have predicted that the virulence of this wave is expected to push the cases to less than 100,000 infections a day in the best-case scenario or nearly 150,000 in the worst scenario.

India's current surge in cases is being driven by states like Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Lakshwadweep, Tamil Nadu, Mizoram, Karnataka, Puducherry and Kerala, which have reported a trend of rising cases and are now under scrutiny of the central government.

Health ministry officials have maintained that the spread of highly transmissible Delta variant of Covid-19 is a dominant problem.

"The pandemic is still raging and we are concerned that some states have the R number which is rising, which shows the virus wishes to expand and we must curb it," Niti Aayog Member (Health) Dr VK Paul said earlier this week, addressing a press briefing

The government has stressed hotspot states to reply on contact tracing and create containment zones wherever clusters are identified.