In 114 of India’s least developed districts – collectively home to about 176 million people – authorities have administered just 23 million doses in total.

That’s the same number of doses as have been administered across nine major cities — New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Thane and Nagpur — which combined have half the population.

India’s active caseload further declined to 16,35,993 as active cases decreased by 77,420 in the last 24 hours. The active cases in the country have been less than 2 lakhs since eight successive days. The daily positivity rate stands at 6.38 per cent, remaining below the 10 per cent-mark for 11 consecutive days, while the weekly positivity rate stands at 7.27 per cent.

“When the second wave came and this passenger traffic came down to 40,000 last week. On Thursday it increased to 80,000 and later it will continue to increase with the decline in COVID cases,” said the Union Minister.

The Centre submitted affidavits saying, “The Companies manufacturing COVID-19 vaccination in India have given only “Emergency Use Authorization for vaccinating people of 18 years age and above, therefore, COVID vaccines are not recommended for persons/children less than 18 years of age. This is also because of the fact that the clinical trial group during phase 1, phase 2 and phase 3 did not cover the children below 18 years of age.”