“There is a restless urgency in the air in India to resume high growth, and incoming data point to even contact-intensive services such as personal care, recreation and hospitality gathering traction,” central bankers led by Deputy Governor Michael Debabrata Patra wrote in the Reserve Bank of India’s latest monthly bulletin. But “another outbreak, more lockdowns and restraints, will get unbearable in spite of learning from the initial experience of living with the virus.

Meanwhile, Odisha might have to stop its coronavirus vaccination drive for four days because of a shortage of doses, according to a letter reviewed by Reuters, even as overall inoculations hit a record on Tuesday.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), in the three countries where the pandemic is being driven by the variant mutants of SARS-CoV-2 virus, namely the UK, South Africa and Brazil, the South African and Brazilian variants have the potential to reinfect persons who have been previously infected with SARS-CoV-2, he said in a written reply.