India records highest COVID-19 cases in two months, worst-hit Kerala in focus

India reported the biggest single-day rise in COVID-19 cases in two months today, as the government worries about the virus spreading from the most-affected Kerala state, schools reopening, and the start of the festival season.

Kerala accounted for nearly 70 per cent of the 47,092 new infections and a third of deaths.

This comes a week after it celebrated its biggest festival during which family and social gatherings were common.

"With cases rising in Kerala, adequate steps should be taken to contain the inter-state spread of COVID-19," Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said in a statement after speaking with his state counterparts in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, which border Kerala.

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Also, he asked them to increase vaccination in the districts close to Kerala. 

India has so far administered 662 million doses, with at least one dose in 54 per cent of its 944 million adults and the required two doses in 16 per cent.

"A decently managed vaccination programme, along with the hybrid immunity we're seeing now, makes a massive third wave unlikely," said clinical immunologist and rheumatologist Padmanabha Shenoy, who led the study and was referring to the immunity from natural infection and one vaccine dose.

The federal government has warned that like in Kerala, the rest of India could also see a rise in infections around the festival season.

India has so far reported about 32.9 million infections, the most in the world after the United States. Deaths went up by 509 on Thursday to a total of 439,529.