Covid live updates: Alarm as signs of third Covid wave in at least 10 Indian states

In China, coronavirus cases hit a seven-month high on Tuesday amid the rise of the Delta variant in the country.

The government has described this current outbreak — which has sparked local lockdowns, mass testing and travel restrictions — as the most severe since the virus emerged in Wuhan.

On Tuesday, Chinese health authorities registered 143 fresh coronavirus infections. Out of these, 108 were locally transmitted.

The Tuesday numbers are believed to be the highest since January, when the country registered 144 new Covid cases and 126 domestic infections, mostly in the northern regions.

The state-controlled Xinhua news agency quoted Zhang Wenhong, an infectious diseases expert in the country, as saying: “We have successfully contained the epidemic in Guangzhou, and the epidemic in Nanjing is gradually being put under control.”

In spite of the growing number of Covid-19 infections in the state, Kerala is allowing the reopening of malls from today.

According to the government order, Covid safety protocols must be followed at the entry points of malls.

Shops, markets, banks, offices, factories, tourist spaces, and other financial, commercial, and industrial establishments in Kerala are currently open six days a week from Monday to Saturday.

The weekend lockdown has been restricted only to Sundays, the state health minister Veena George told the media.

Kerala is the only state in the country that has more than 100,000 active Covid-19 cases. And fresh data revealed on Tuesday that the positivity rate in the state reached its level in almost three months.

The union health minister has announced that there are “37 districts of concern” across India that are driving the country’s surge in Covid-19 numbers.

At least 37 districts across nine states — Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Meghalaya and Mizoram — are a matter of “concern” according to the Indian health ministry. These districts are showing a rising trend in daily coronavirus cases over the last two weeks.

Overall, there are 44 districts across India that have been reporting more than a 10 per cent weekly positivity rate, the data says.

Kerala in the south is the only state that has more than 100,000 active Covid-19 cases.

India registered 38,353 fresh Covid-19 infections on Tuesday — 36 per cent higher than on Monday.

Signs of a third Covid-19 wave have emerged in India with at least 10 states reporting a rise in the R-value — that indicates that each infected person is transmitting the coronavirus to more people than in the past three months.

States including Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala are reporting a rise in R-value, experts said.

Currently, the average R-value — or Reproduction factor — in India is 1.01. Experts say that this means that every infected person is transmitting the virus to more than one other person.

During the deadly second wave in the country, the R-value was around 1.4 and almost a month ago, it dropped to 0.9.

Experts are worried that the rise of the reproduction value above 1 signals a growing infection rate in the country. Dr Samiran Panda, head epidemiologist at the Indian Council of Medical Research, was quoted as saying: “The R-value going up could be early warning signals of the beginning of a third wave.”