India, in the last 24 hours, recorded 41,806 new Covid-19 cases, a slight increase from Tuesday’s 38,792. 

The country also witnessed 581 Covid-related deaths on Wednesday. There are currently 4,32,041 active cases across India. 

Kerala continues to be the top contributor, reporting 15,637 new cases — the highest in more than a month.

The AY.1 and AY.2 sub-lineages of the highly contagious Delta variant of the novel coronavirus are unlikely to be more transmissible than Delta itself, said the consortium of government panels involved in genome sequencing of coronavirus. 

In a recent bulletin, the Indian Sars-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) said that the cases of Delta sub-lineages AY.1 and AY.2 are declining globally, with near-zero cases in the last week of June in the UK and the US where they were most frequently detected.

“It is likely that neither AY.1 nor AY.2 is more transmissible than Delta,” the INSACOG said, adding there is no indication of a rising trend in the four clusters of Ratnagiri and Jalgaon in Maharashtra, Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh and Chennai in Tamil Nadu.

Meanwhile, a player of the Indian cricket team in England has tested positive for Covid -19 and is staying in home isolation at the moment, The Indian Express has learnt. The player is home quarantined at his relatives’ place at present and is likely to join the tour party in Durham later.

Also, taking suo motu cognisance of a report in The Indian Express on the Uttar Pradesh government’s decision to allow the Kanwar Yatra which has been suspended by neighbouring Uttarakhand amid fears of a possible third Covid-19 wave, the Supreme Court has sought responses by Friday from the Centre and the governments of UP and Uttarakhand.

Source: The Indian Express

BDST: 1252 HRS, JULY 15, 2021
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