In a significant initiative to ensure safety from Covid, the Health Ministry, on Monday, allowed foreign nationals residing in India to register on the CoWin portal to take the jab. The Ministry said that they can use their passport as identity document to register on the CoWIN portal.
“A significant number of foreign nationals are living in India, especially in large metropolitan areas. In these areas, the potential of spread of Covid-19 is high due to higher population density. To counter any possibility of such occurrence, it is important to vaccinate all eligible persons,” said the Ministry in a release.
Fresh cases
Meanwhile, India reported 35,499 fresh cases on Monday, with 447 deaths in the last 24 hours till 8:00 am, as per Health Ministry data. The cases are lower than the previous 39,070. Cumulatively, the country recorded 3,19,69,954 infections, of which, the total active load was 4,02,188 and the death toll 4,28,309. It is to be noted that in the last 24 hours 39,686 cases recovered, aggregating to total recoveries of 3,11,39,457.
A spike in active cases was noticed in Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. Kerala has been registering the highest cases and, on Monday, it reported 18,607 cases with 93 deaths, followed by Maharashtra at 5,508 cases with 151 casualties.
Also, the weekly positivity rate remained below 5 per cent, currently at 2.35 per cent, and the daily positivity rate stood at 2.59 per cent, less than 3 per cent for the last 14 days.
In addition, India conducted 13,71,871 tests on Sunday, with a total 48.17 crore tests carried out so far.